


Sonatina in G Minor

by SilentAuror



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Happy Ending, M/M, POV: Sherlock, POV: third person, Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension, post series 3, violin lessons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 16:46:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7900330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentAuror/pseuds/SilentAuror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has come back to Baker Street, but Sherlock doesn't understand the strange tension between them, even after he begins teaching John to play the violin at John's request..</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sonatina in G Minor

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Сонатина соль минор](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14360148) by [Bothersome_Arya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bothersome_Arya/pseuds/Bothersome_Arya)



**Sonatina in G Minor**

 

That John came home at all is still nothing short of a miracle. 

Sherlock is painfully, exquisitely aware of this fact, and it causes him to deploy more caution than possibly ever in his life prior to this point. It has been mere weeks – three weeks, he calculates. It is the fourteenth of February. (Valentine’s Day, not that Sherlock has ever put any stock in this purely commercial, artificially-manufactured holiday before.) John came back on the twenty-fourth of January, his face clouded with anger. _I don’t want to talk about it_ , he’d said shortly, thumping his suitcases down in the front hall. _I just need out, Sherlock. Can I stay here for now? Or –_ Sherlock had frowned at him, wondering why he’d even qualified it this way. _Stay,_ he’d said. _Just stay, John._ John had cleared his throat and nodded, and when Sherlock had reached for the heavier of the suitcases, John had let him take it and followed with the other one. 

“That’s not too much for you?” he’d asked at the landing. “I don’t want you straining your heart.” 

“I’m fine,” Sherlock had said briefly, and it was mostly true. It was eight months later but he could still feel the ghostly echo of Mary’s bullet in his chest. 

He’d steered clear of the topic for the first few days, letting John take his time getting resettled in. He’d already stayed for most of the summer and autumn, carting Sherlock back and forth to the hospital for check-ups on his liver and heart, but Sherlock had known it was a temporary arrangement only. He’d had the wit to realise that if John were as upset as he was, it was because it was important to him. The marriage. Mary. If he’d cared less, he wouldn’t have been so angry about it all. And, as Sherlock had assumed would happen, John eventually resigned himself to the reality of his situation and found a way to live with it, to take Mary back. Or so he’d thought. For the first five or six days after his reprieve from the mission to Serbia, he hadn’t heard much from John. Then they’d had a case, and focused on that, and if John had been a trifle distant, Sherlock hadn’t paid a lot of attention to it. The baby was due soon. He knew that. He had become aware of John’s mixed feelings about that during the autumn, but thought this would likely disappear once the child was actually born. 

It took John a week after coming home before he told Sherlock, about the baby. About her real father. Mary had finally confessed, he’d said. Said it was a mistake, that it wouldn’t happen again. That she’d been jealous of the time he’d been spending on cases, that she’d been lonely. 

“She was the one who encouraged you to – ” Sherlock had started, not understanding, but John had interrupted, his voice and face terse. 

“I know that. I bloody well _know_ that, Sherlock. It was just an excuse, obviously.” He’d tossed back the rest of his whiskey then and accepted a refill from Sherlock. “I’m finished, Sherlock. That was just – on top of everything else. I can’t believe she expected me to just – forgive that, too, after all the rest of it. Everything she’s done. All the lies. Whatever’s all in her past. All that redacted stuff on the thumb drive.” 

Sherlock had nodded slowly, understanding this well enough. They’d read the thumb drive together, back in September. Discussed what to do about it. He’d let it go then, not pursuing it and sensing that John wanted to have his vent and then leave it alone. They’ve settled cautiously back into a routine, but it’s different again. It’s not what it was the first time, in the days before Bart’s. It’s also not what it was during the autumn – pleasant, but obviously short-term. This is uncharted territory. He does not know how long John intends to stay. He knows very well that, privately, he would like it to go on indefinitely. He knows with equal clarity that this is not a realistic hope. John will meet someone else and move on. Again. 

Today he has been restless and fidgety, and Sherlock wonders if it’s because of the holiday. Having the recent breaking of a marriage seems a plausible enough reason, he supposes, but doesn’t know what to do about it. In the past, suggesting activities or meals out after a difficult day at the clinic, an angry visit with his sister, et cetera, has worked moderately well in terms of offering solace, but even Sherlock realises that any of these things would take on a different connotation or public perception on this particular day. Should he order in, then? No: too standard, hardly something that would cheer John up. Cook, then? Sherlock weighs this idea, then decides it has merit. He thinks of John’s tastes and contemplates what a suitable meal could be, something that would cheer him up, yet not be suggestive of Valentine’s Day in particular or be too ordinary to offer that particular sort of comfort. Steak, perhaps. He reads three separate articles about preparing steaks and the sorts of cuts to buy, then closes his laptop. He checks the time. It’s a little after four in the afternoon. John is sitting at the desk at his laptop. Scrolling, not typing. Sherlock half-turns in his chair. “Busy tonight?” he asks, careful to keep his inflection light. 

John’s snort says enough, but he goes on and answers verbally as well. “No,” he says acidly. “You?” 

There is a slight edge to this last which stings a little, but Sherlock has made himself nearly immune to such things. “No.” He places his laptop on the side table and gets to his feet. “In that case, I thought I might cook tonight, if you’re amenable. I’ll just need to pick a few things up.” 

“All right.” John sounds neither pleased nor bothered, just neutral. 

Sherlock supposes this is fine. “Do you need anything while I’m out?” he asks politely, and wonders how they became so carefully polite around one another. He realises half a moment later that he hadn’t noticed it before just now. It bothers him. 

“No, I’m fine, thanks,” John tells him, not looking up. 

Sherlock accepts this and leaves without further exchange. He returns forty-five minutes later and begins preparations in the kitchen. A salt rub on the steaks, potatoes washed, then peeled and chopped. Nuts are roasted for a salad, mushrooms rubbed clean with a damp cloth, stems cut off, then garlic is peeled and chopped. “Are you getting hungry?” he asks, toward six. He finds a bottle of cabernet sauvignon in the cupboard and opens it to breathe, setting it on the counter. 

John makes an interested sound and says, “Could do. What are you making over there?” 

“Steak,” Sherlock tells him, and gets out a frying pan, following the instructions he read earlier. 

This gets John out of his chair. “Anything I can do to help?” he offers, coming into the kitchen. 

Sherlock shakes his head. “I think I’ve got it under control. You could lay the table, though, if you like.” 

“Sure.” John sets about clearing it off.

Sherlock grills the mushrooms as the potatoes boil, then chops romaine and tosses it with rocket and spinach. The steaks are next, sizzling next to the mushrooms as he slices fresh figs and crumbles bleu cheese onto the greens. The pecans are chopped and scattered over this. He turns the steaks and whisks a vinaigrette out of balsamic vinegar and maple syrup, then tosses the salad as the steak rests. 

“You could have been a chef,” John says, breaking the companionable silence. 

Sherlock picks up the salad and brings it to the table. “Hardly,” he says. “It’s all very basic.” 

“I’ve never seen you make steak before,” John comments, fidgeting with the stem of his wineglass. 

“I googled it.” Sherlock goes back to where the potatoes are steaming in their pot and drains them, adds roasted garlic and mashes them briskly. A dollop of butter, a splash of milk, and they’re done. He serves the steaks and sits down across from John and nods at the wine bottle that John set in the centre of the table. “You can pour the wine, if you like.” 

“I was just going to.” John meets his eyes briefly and smiles, filling both their glasses. “This looks fantastic. You should have let me do more.” 

Sherlock smiles a little, mostly to himself. “Next time,” he says, lifting his glass, and John clinks his to Sherlock’s. Neither of them proposes a toast of any sort. Instead, they drink in silence, then start in on the delicious food. The juices from the steak and the butter it was cooked in runs into Sherlock’s pile of mashed potatoes and gets soaked in. They eat and the same companionable silence winds its way into the spaces between the things they say and it’s not at all unpleasant. Sherlock begins to wonder, though, if there’s something John is not saying, specifically. He wonders if it’s about the date in particular, or whether John is bothered about something. He does seem a bit preoccupied. When they’ve both finished and pushed their plates away, he decides to broach it. He pours the last of the wine into their glasses and sets the bottle down. “So,” he says, and realises he doesn’t know whether or not he wants to actually say the rest. 

John lifts his brows and picks up his glass. “So?” he repeats. 

Sherlock opens his mouth, his eyes directed at the table between them, then decides it’s too late not to finish his question. “I was just going to say something about how it must be – odd, being here again, instead of at the flat. And not with Mary today.” 

John scowls a little, but he doesn’t retreat from it. “No,” he says shortly. “It’s not odd. If you’re thinking I’m upset or something, don’t. I’m glad it’s over.” 

Sherlock considers this, feeling his mouth purse. “Are you?” he asks, rather directly, but he does not try to soften it. 

John’s thoughts appear to take a moment to organise themselves, but then he nods. “Yeah. Definitely.” He hesitates, searching for the words, then says, “You know, it wasn’t just all of the criminal stuff. I mean, obviously it was, but – it also just wasn’t the right fit. I thought it must be because it felt comfortable. I mistook that. I thought we seemed like a couple that had been together for ages, but that’s only because it didn’t have much spark to it. I mistook that for the well-worn comfort of a long-term relationship, but the truth was that it wasn’t very exciting. I was never – I don’t know, filled with joy. Ecstatically, radiantly happy. I was content at best.” 

Sherlock frowns a little. “Are all relationships supposed to be exciting?” 

“Oh, yes,” John tells him. He sounds very definite on this point. “At the very beginning, at least. Your heart should race a little when you’re going to see them. You should be thinking about them all the time, counting down the minutes until you can see them again. It was never like that with Mary and me. I would think of her during the day and think, ‘oh yeah, dinner with Mary. Right. That should be nice. I like Italian.’ Nothing more than that. I suppose I told myself that I couldn’t ask for better than that. That after what I’d been through, nice was as much as I could hope for.” 

He drinks and takes a large swallow of cabernet. Sherlock eyes him over the rim of his own glass and silently swallows down the surge of unease that comes with John’s reference to what his disappearance put John through. “And then I suppose there was the rest of it,” he offers. 

John’s face darkens a little again. “Yeah. Exactly. I picked a real prize, didn’t I?” 

Sherlock hesitates, then says, “You couldn’t have known.” 

“I know that.” There is a flash of anger in John’s eyes, his mouth unsmiling. “But _you_ could have.”

Sherlock feels slightly taken aback, the anger surprising him unpleasantly. “John – ” he starts, his tone wary, but John cuts him off. 

“You could have seen it. You should have. But instead you were busy making friends with her,” he says, his mouth a little tight. “That’s the one thing I don’t understand, Sherlock. Why did you bother? You never did in the past, with my other girlfriends. It was like you were intent on scaring them all away. But Mary, you accepted. I don’t get it. And then driving me back to her, the night I found out she shot you. What _was_ that, Sherlock?” 

He’s glaring at Sherlock now and Sherlock feels his pulse speeding up, thumping in his veins. “It was me trying to keep you alive,” he says, too startled to bother filtering it for once. It comes out very bluntly.

John stares at him, his mouth falling open. “What?”

“I was trying to keep you alive,” Sherlock repeats stubbornly. “I had no way of knowing whether Mary would become a danger to you if you had left her. I had just been shot, remember. Perhaps my bias was affecting my judgement, but I still believe that there was a strong possibility that Mary could have proven dangerous to you, had you left her that night. I was in no position to help or protect you. I did what I could. And as to why I accepted her, it seemed to me that it was a package deal. Given the… state of our friendship when I first returned to London, I didn’t particularly care to rock the boat overly. I was grateful that you decided to forgive me.” He pauses. “I still am. And you had just got engaged. If I had told you at that point that your new fiancée was not who she seemed, that I had deduced that she was keeping secrets from you and was a liar, how would you have reacted? Tell me honestly, John. And then tell me that you wouldn’t have looked the other way, too.” 

He lets his gaze bore into John’s face. John holds his eyes for a moment, then the fire seems to go out of his own and he looks away. “I suppose so,” he admits gruffly. “But it wasn’t just that you ‘accepted’ her,” he persists, albeit a bit reluctantly. “I thought you went well beyond what was necessary.” 

Sherlock shakes his head. “I was doing it for our friendship, John. Nothing more. Did you think I was – I don’t know, crossing some sort of line? Or – I don’t quite understand.” 

John sighs and swirls the wine in his glass without drinking it. “It sounds stupid,” he allows, his shoulders visibly tight, “but – it’s just – you would talk to her on the phone, but not me, or – ”

“Yes, because she would call me,” Sherlock tells him, eyes still on John’s face. “I never called first.” 

“You would talk about me, even gang up on me sometimes, just in little ways. And then she said you were going to teach her to play the violin! I lived with you for two years and you never offered to give me violin lessons. Was I really as hopeless as all that in your eyes? Or was it just that you’d got closer to Mary than you ever were to me?” John turns his face and meets Sherlock’s gaze across the table, and with horror Sherlock sees hurt there, and realises at last where this is all stemming from. 

“ _No_ ,” he says forcefully. “Not at all, John! Honestly, it was all just intended to smooth the road ahead. I didn’t want to be that friend your wife never wanted you to see. As for the lessons, she asked _me_ , John. I never offered! And it never started, anyway. It has never to do with any sort of ‘preference’. The very notion that I could have been closer to Mary than to you, my best friend, is absurd!” 

“Why is it absurd?” John demands, colour rising into his cheeks. 

Sherlock lets his exasperation get the better of him. “Because I detested Mary!” he snaps. 

John stares at him, his face changing. “You did?” 

“I did since the moment I met her,” Sherlock says, with some violence. “I loathed everything about her, from her political views to the tattoo at the base of her spine. I hated what she represented in your life. I hated her existence in general, and that was before she shot me in the heart. She made it clear that she intended for me to die while I was still in the hospital, and she would have killed me again in Leinster Square. I hated that you went back to her. I hated her little jabs. And I hated having to play at being friends with her most of all!” 

John’s shoulders release and he exhales deeply. “Sherlock…”

“And I didn’t even want her to _touch_ my violin,” Sherlock adds, aware that it makes him sound like a petulant child and not caring. “It was all her idea. All of it. She tried to make me feel as though I couldn’t be friends with you unless she were included in that somehow, that she was the broker of our friendship, our self-appointed mediator when things weren’t right. And I think that she must have hated me, too. The entire thing was a show put on for your sake – though I would imagine for very different reasons.” 

John’s expressive mouth is making troubled shapes. “I see,” he says slowly, and finally takes another sip of his wine. 

Sherlock feels slightly abashed for the entire rant. He’d never meant to say all that, but if John thought that he somehow _preferred_ Mary to him, he simply had to correct the ludicrous notion once and for all. “If it comes to that, I could give you violin lessons, if you want,” he offers. “I had no idea you were interested in learning to play.” 

John looks a bit sheepish. “I’d never thought about it until Mary said you were going to teach her,” he admits. “I just – the thought of the two of you, off doing your own thing and me being left out – and violin, too! It seems like such a – such a personal thing for you to have shared,” he says, looking more chagrined still. “I know how petty that makes me sound, believe it or not. I just – yeah. That’s been on my mind a bit lately. I’m sorry, I’m just working through it all, you know? I didn’t mean to shout at you about it, especially not after that fantastic meal.” 

Sherlock smiles. “Not an issue,” he assures John. “I’m serious, though. If you’d like to learn to play, I’d be happy to teach you.” 

John hesitates, looking dubious, but the very lack of dismissal of the notion suggests that he is indeed interested. “Have you ever taught anyone before?” 

“Children,” Sherlock says. “Back during university days. It was a way to – make pocket money.” 

Neither of them says aloud what said pocket money had almost certainly gone to back then, which is tactful on John’s part. “Children,” he repeats instead. “I can almost imagine that, but not quite. You know I’ll be crap, of course. I learned the clarinet in high school but wasn’t much good at it. I always squeaked and squawked. Never had the right sort of reed and such.” 

“Can you still read music?” Sherlock asks, curious. “I know you must have learned for the clarinet…”

John nods. “I can read reasonably well, yeah. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some things, but I would imagine that I still know the gist of it.” 

Sherlock reaches for John’s plate and stacks it on top of his own. “Good,” he says briskly. “That will help.” Somehow this feels awkward to discuss and he makes a show of organising the dishes just so. “When do you want to start?” 

John shrugs. “Whenever,” he says. “Whenever it suits you.” 

Sherlock shrugs, too, and makes a vague gesture with his hands. “Perhaps tonight, then. Meanwhile, there’s dessert, if you’ve got space. A chocolate cream pie. Shall I bring it out?” 

John’s face relaxes fully at last and he smiles across at Sherlock as he reaches for their plates. “Sure,” he says. “But I’ll deal with this lot. You already went to all this trouble.” 

*** 

“Right elbow a little higher,” Sherlock says. 

John makes the adjustment. “Like this?” He’s standing in the middle of the room, Sherlock seated in his chair, watching him with a critical eye. 

“Yes. That’s better. Try another note, just the open string.” Before John can ask, he explains. “Keep your fingers off the strings for now, just play it the way it is.” 

John draws the bow across the D string. The bow skips a little and the note creaks. John makes a face. “That sounds awful.” 

“Apply a little more pressure,” Sherlock tells him. “Don’t be afraid to dig into the string a little.” John tries it again and the note is strong and clear this time. “That’s it,” Sherlock says approvingly. “Doesn’t that sound better?” John makes an affirmative sound, his face full of concentration. “Keep trying it,” Sherlock instructs. “Go both directions with the bow, too.” 

John moves to the A string and gives that a try. “I know the basic concept of how it’s played, I guess, but how do you control the tuning? With clarinet, it’s all in the mouth, in the embouchure. Plus your fingers are on specific keys. This all seems very – vague.” 

“You control it with your ear,” Sherlock says. He gets up and comes around to stand just over John’s shoulder, and points at the fingering chart in the exercise book he’s got open on the music stand. “Try an F on the D string.”

John squints at the page. “‘Low second finger’,” he says, reading. “What does that mean? Is this my second finger?” He places his middle finger on the fingerboard in an approximation of where the F is. “Here?” 

“About there, but that’s the A string,” Sherlock tells him. “Low means closer to the end, rather than closer to the bridge.” 

John tries the note a bit tentatively. “Like this?” The note scrapes along the string. 

“Almost.” Sherlock goes around to look. “That’s about right. A little lower, though. It’s sharp.” 

John frowns and tries again. “How’s that?” 

“Better,” Sherlock says. He goes back to stand behind John and reaches around him with his left arm to adjust his fingering a little. “Try that.” He steps away, keenly aware of John’s presence, of the focus radiating off him in waves. It’s heady and nearly makes him dizzy. He silently cautions himself and puts more distance between them, and goes back to the chair. “Try the other notes on that string.” 

They work for an hour, and by the end of it, John is tired but pleased, and Sherlock is pleased with him, too. 

“Your homework is to learn the scales on the first page, and the Etude in C on page four,” he says. “Practise as much or as little as you like. And if you’d like to practise up in your room, that’s fine. Just be careful with the violin.” 

John looks surprised but pleased. “All right,” he says. “Thanks. I might just do that. Easier without you right in front of me.” 

Sherlock smiles. “Precisely. Good work. You’ve made a good start.” 

John smiles back. “Should I pay you or something?” he asks, the thought suddenly occurring to him. “I didn’t even ask, sorry!” 

Sherlock shakes his head. “Please,” he says briefly. “I would be insulted.” 

John smiles again, with real warmth this time. “Okay,” he says. “I should have at least offered, though.”

Sherlock gets up and takes the violin from him, putting it back into its case and giving himself a reason to not look at John. “It’s fine,” he says, a little stiffly. “I would rather you didn’t.” He clears his throat. “Do you want to watch the news, or…?”

“There wasn’t anything much in the papers,” John says. “Feel like a film, or is it too late?” 

Sherlock thinks of sitting on the sofa next to John the way they do for longer programmes, moving the television to the coffee table, John’s presence warm beside him on the leather cushions. “It’s not too late,” he says. “You choose something. I’ll just go and change.” 

This is the tradition: movies in their pyjamas, but it hasn’t happened yet since John came home. John throws him another surprised-pleased look. “You still remember that?” he asks, his voice unusually fond, and Sherlock has to swallow. 

“Of course,” he says, fighting to keep it light, and flees to the sanctuary of his bedroom before he can give anything more away. 

*** 

Sherlock comes home three days later and stops on the stairs, hearing the violin. John is in the sitting room with it. He creeps softly up to the landing and stops to listen. John’s working on the etude, repeating the first two measures over and over, hesitating between notes but gradually getting quicker. Sherlock is impressed; he’s never taught an adult beginner before and doesn’t know what is typical for them in terms of learning speed, but John is improving more quickly than he expected. He makes his way stealthily up to the top of the stairs, and John stops playing. 

“You can just come in,” he calls, and Sherlock guiltily moves into the doorway. 

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” he says, by way of explanation. 

“I heard you come in downstairs already,” John informs him, just a gleam of smirk playing about his mouth. “Trying to cop a listen, were you?” 

Sherlock smiles a little. “I didn’t want to make you feel self-conscious. It’s sounding good.” 

John lowers the violin and bow both. “Does it?” he asks dubiously. “It sounds pretty rough to me.” 

“I’m impressed that you’re finding the notes that quickly already,” Sherlock says, truthfully. “You must have been practising your scales.” 

“And studying the fingering chart, yeah,” John allows. “Any suggestions? Or maybe you don’t feel like having an actual ‘lesson’ per se, right now?” 

“No, it’s fine,” Sherlock assures him. “All right: two suggestions. First, you can still lean into the strings a little more. If they still squeak, the strings might need a little rosin. I’ll show you how to do that. Secondly, I suggest starting at the end and working backwards, rather than repeating the beginning over and over again. That way you’ll always be working your way into more familiar territory, rather than less.”

“Ah. Good idea.” John lifts the violin again, but pauses. “Don’t – judge it too harshly just yet,” he warns. 

“Of course not.” Sherlock pulls off his coat and hangs it up. “I’m going to put the kettle on. Pretend I’m not here.” 

John’s snort shows what he thinks of that, but he tackles the penultimate and final measures of the little etude with something like grim determination as Sherlock putters around the kitchen, measuring out tea and finding a couple of mugs that aren’t dirty. He makes a show of occupying himself, but they both know he’s listening intently. John sorts out the fingering first, one note at a time, systematically, then goes through the two-bar section slowly. He paid attention to what Sherlock told him about leaning into the strings and it’s already better. The kettle boils and Sherlock pours steaming water into the teapot, puts on the lid, and carries a tray into the sitting room. 

John is working his way backward toward the beginning of the piece, section by section. When he reaches the beginning, Sherlock pours two cups of tea and fixes them both the way they each prefer. “Good. Now play it all the way through, twice. No hesitations or going back to correct yourself.” 

John doesn’t respond, but does exactly that. His playing is slow and steady, but there are no painful pauses as he searches for a fingering, no scrapes on the strings. There’s no particular fire to his playing – although he’s a raw beginner, so perhaps that’s not fair to judge yet, Sherlock thinks – but he is playing solidly and well. He finishes the second play through and lowers the violin. “How was that?” he wants to know. 

Sherlock nods, more impressed that he feels he should let on. “Very good. Impressive. You learn quickly.” He doesn’t miss the quick flash of pride that crosses John’s face, the smile. “Put that away and come have a cup of tea.” 

“Yes, mother,” John quips, and lays the violin back in its case, snaps the fastenings shut, and comes to sit down across from Sherlock. He picks up the cup and sips. “Oh, it’s perfect,” he says appreciatively. 

Sherlock smiles a little, mostly to himself. “What should we do for dinner tonight?” 

“It’s Wednesday,” John says. “Half-price rolls at Miyabi tonight.” 

“Perfect. I was thinking of sushi,” Sherlock says with satisfaction. 

“Me too. And gyoza, with that tangy dipping sauce,” John says, sipping his tea and leaning back in his chair. “That’s tiring,” he comments. “I like it, though.”

“Better than the clarinet?” Sherlock inquires. 

“Much. How old were you when you started?” 

“Seven. I hated practising, though.” Sherlock shrugs. “I suppose most people do.” 

“Play something, would you?” John asks. “It’s been awhile since I’ve heard you play. Since the wedding, in fact. And now that I’ve got a new appreciation for the technique, I’d love to hear you again.” 

Sherlock feels his lips tighten a little. He takes another sip of his tea, then sets it down and gets up, going to the violin case where John left it on the desk. “I don’t think I’ve played since the wedding,” he says, feeling a bit self-conscious about admitting it. 

John absorbs this. “Hard to play when you’ve been shot in the heart, I suppose,” he offers quietly. 

Sherlock picks up the instrument and runs his fingertips over the strings. What should he play? He considers, then chooses the Paganini Caprice #4 in C minor. “I’m rusty,” he says. “But if you want something flashy that shows technique… well, we’ll see if I still have any.” 

John shakes his head. “Come on. I know better than that. You playing ‘rusty’ is probably still virtuosic compared to most.” 

Sherlock smiles and rummages through a stack of sheet music on the desk until he finds the Paganini. “No promises,” he says, and sets it on the stand and begins to play. It’s short, six and a half minutes or so, but the minor key and introspective quality appeal to him. He gets absorbed after the first minute and his fingers remember the piece better than he thought they might, but then he’s been playing it for over half his life. He lets himself sink into it, into playing for John. It’s always more rewarding to play for an audience, especially one as appreciative as John. It’s different now, though. Now he’s actively trying to impress John, even more so than when they first moved in together. It’s as though he feels that impressing John with his violin technique is a form of seduction in and of itself, and of course it isn’t. Still, though, when he draws the bow off after the final notes of the Caprice, John’s face is full of admiration and it’s like a drug. 

“Wow,” John says, not filtering it at all. “That was spectacular, Sherlock. Thanks for that.” 

Sherlock puts the violin away again and goes to finish his tea, which has grown cold. He drains the cup and John refills it with hot tea, pushing the sugar bowl toward him. “I’m glad you thought it was all right,” he says, not allowing himself to say anything more. He stirs sugar into the tea and listens to John enthuse about his playing and suddenly it occurs to him that things are almost perfect already. This is almost all he wants: the two of them, at home, doing something as simple as having tea and playing for one another, discussing music and technique, with their favourite sushi in the neighbourhood for dinner. He is almost happy, and this is possibly the first time in his life that he’s been conscious of the fact at the time. He watches John’s mouth move, only half listening, his own forming appropriate responses, and thinks of how large a piece is still missing, though. How much he would like to be able to lean forward across the small gap and still John’s mouth with his own, take his hand walking home from the restaurant, pleasantly full and enjoying the evening together. John following him down the corridor to the bedroom later, with whatever that would entail within. The details of this last are vague in Sherlock’s mind, but he’s quite certain that he wants it rather badly. He knows that he craves not only the right to touch, but the welcome and invitation to do so, a standing arrangement whereby they are both permitted to lay claim to the other in every manner, not least physically. To some extent they already do this: move the other person out of the way, out of danger, into the right direction. He does not hesitate (and never has) to manhandle John into his coat and John has, on occasion, ordered him to put a scarf on due to the cold and then put it on Sherlock himself without waiting. But taking things off – that would be quite different. He craves this down to the bone, this hunger for John to handle him, touch in a far more proprietary way. Sherlock has difficulty even verbalising the rest of it in his own mind, but there are more specific touches he hungers after, too. John’s hands, placed in particular locations. Or his mouth. The short/pleasing length of his body, pressed flushed to his own. He clears his throat and takes another sip of tea and hopes that John has not suddenly developed an ability to read minds. 

If he has, he refrains from commenting. He finishes his tea, pours himself a refill, and says, “So when do you want to go for dinner? Are you getting hungry?” 

Sherlock does not tell him that he’s been hungry for a long time already. Instead he says something neutral and lets John make the decision. 

*** 

Sherlock recrosses his knees and focuses on the client seated on the desk chair between himself and John. The usual place. The immediate deductions have already come, but there is something about her that he has not yet entirely placed. Forty-one or so, just a few years younger than himself, attractive enough, decently-employed, calico cat (there are several multi-coloured hairs on her black skirt – amazing how cat owners never seem to realise that they’re constantly covered in cat hair) – recent manicure, no children, took the tube here. Not all of the pieces have fallen into place in her life, though. She’s not as settled as most women her age. Still looking for something, then, or else something else failed to work out. A long-term relationship that ultimately went nowhere, he decides, but this is purely conjecture. John would snort if he said this aloud. He returns his focus to what John is asking her. 

“So, his last known whereabouts were – at his home on Tuesday night last week?” John prompts, confirming, though Sherlock has discovered that this is also John’s way of issuing a light verbal probe, angling for more details or more personal information that what was originally given. 

The client nods. (What is her name? Deborah? Lindsay? Nancy?) “Yes, that’s right,” she confirms. “Robert texted me from work to say that he was on his way home, then again just after eight to tell me that he’d forgotten to get the milk.” She smiles, her hands twisting in her lap. No ring, Sherlock notes, and glances without meaning to at John’s bare left hand, too. “He always used to forget something. Usually the milk.” 

“It sounds as though you know him quite well,” John observes, crossing his legs at the knee. Another light probe, artfully deployed, Sherlock thinks. 

The client colours a little, her head ducking. “I do,” she says. “We weren’t – you know – together, not officially, at least, but – ”

“But there was an attraction,” John says, filling it in for her. 

This gets another nod. “We had UST. You know. It was always there.” 

Sherlock frowns. “UST?” he repeats. He looks to John in case he’s missed some vital terminology that everyone else seems to have learned except himself, but John looks puzzled, too. 

“Unresolved sexual tension,” the client explains, looking first at him, then at John. “You know: when there’s obviously some form of attraction, that both people can feel, but maybe neither one is exactly sure where the other person stands, so no one’s said anything yet. No one wants to make a move, just in case they’re reading it wrong, or they’re the only one who feels it. There are signs, but maybe the other person didn’t mean to project whatever the first person is seeing. That sort of thing.” 

Sherlock feels his frown deepen. “What do you mean, ‘signs’?” 

The client looks at him with gentle confusion. “You know,” she says, which doesn’t explain anything. “When it’s just – obvious that the other person is attracted. When you can just feel the chemistry in the air between you. It creates a certain tension if it’s not acted upon or acknowledged in any way.” 

Sherlock clears his throat and swallows, and very pointedly avoids looking at John. “I see,” he says, and it comes out sounding as awkward as he feels. “So you and – Robert – had this… unresolved tension.” 

“Unresolved sexual tension,” she corrects him, nicely, and nods. “Yes. I thought we did, at least. The point is, we spent enough time together that I rather think I would have known if he’d been seeing someone else. It’s possible, of course, but I thought things were just on the brink of happening. Though I’ve thought that for a few months now. I suppose that’s always it, isn’t it? Men and commitment?” The woman, whatever her name is, forces a laugh and looks back and forth between them, but neither of them responds. John, Sherlock notes, is looking at the carpet and scowling very slightly. Sherlock doesn’t know what his own face is doing. The client falters. “Oh, sorry,” she says. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I suppose the two of you have girlfriends, then?” 

“No,” John says, very firmly, raising his eyes and giving a rather forced smile that looks more like a grimace. “No girlfriends here.” He clears his throat. “So, getting back to the case: Robert has been missing since Tuesday, then? You haven’t heard anything and neither has his workplace.” 

The woman still looks embarrassed by her seeming gaffe. “Actually, I haven’t called his work,” she says apologetically. “It’s just that I don’t think I really can, given that I can’t actually call myself something specific in relation to him.” 

“What’s wrong with ‘friend’?” Sherlock asks, the question coming out slightly more acerbically than he intended. “Surely a friend has the right to care for the wellbeing of his or her friends.” She opens her mouth to agree but he suddenly finds he has tired of the conversation. “Regardless, what you’re saying is that you have not filed a missing person report with the police. I suggest you start there.”

John glances over, then says, “Or tell us why you’ve come to us first,” he suggests. “Was there another reason?” 

“It was your discretion I was hoping for,” the client says quickly. She tucks a strand of long brown hair behind her ear and twists at her fingers again. She shrugs apologetically. “It’s just, not being his wife or girlfriend or anything, I wasn’t sure if I even had the right to ask. I don’t mind paying. I don’t mean to spy on him or anything; I’m just worried and would like to know where he is.” 

John nods and looks over at Sherlock again. Sherlock makes a slight inclination of the head, silently saying, _Oh, fine, then_ and John says, “Understood.” 

“In that case, we’ll find him for you.” Sherlock gets to his feet and holds out his hand. “You should hear from us within a couple of days. Thank you – ”

“Elaine,” John quietly supplies, and Sherlock repeats the name aloud. 

“Elaine,” he says, and she shakes his hand, then John’s. 

“Thank you both,” she responds, and makes her way downstairs. 

John replaces the chair by the desk and goes into the kitchen to put the kettle on. Sherlock opens his laptop and pretends to look at it, but is far more aware of the fact that the silence between them is ever so slightly strained, now that the concept of _unresolved sexual tension_ has been introduced to their respective vocabularies. 

*** 

The search for Robert Wexford proves less simple than originally suspected. Toward the end of the second day, Sherlock is forced – well, prompted by John, really – to let Lestrade know and a widespread search begins. Sherlock stays focused close to Wexford’s home, looking through his laptop and perusing his emails. The problem is that there is simply nothing, no leads to suggest anything whatsoever. There’s been no activity on his credit card or bank account. His emails are thoroughly boring, nothing to suggest any enmity with anyone, no problems with colleagues, neighbours, friends. No jealous ex-girlfriends, not the slightest spot of criminal activity. There is nothing to suggest anything mysterious or sinister behind his disappearance – and yet he is simply nowhere to be found. Lestrade’s interviews with Wexford’s coworkers give them nothing. 

“You’re sure none of them said _anything_ of interest?” Sherlock asks in frustration, distractedly raking his fingers through his hair. “Nothing whatsoever?” 

Lestrade shrugs expansively. “I’ve told you everything they said, Sherlock. The only thing that was even slightly interesting was that one of the bosses is away right now, too.” 

Sherlock frowns. “You’re not suggesting you think Wexford ran off with his boss on said vacation? Who is this boss? Young? Female?” 

“Hardly,” Lestrade tells him dryly. “Seventy-two, male, history of prostate cancer, and a reputation for absentmindedness. I don’t think it’s particularly likely.” 

“No,” Sherlock admits dispiritedly. “Though I suppose it takes all sorts.” In his peripheral vision he catches Lestrade exchange a look with John and notes with passing confusion that John’s colour deepens very slightly and he looks at the ground, avoiding eye contact with both of them. 

Lestrade clears his throat. “I suppose it does,” he says, too carefully. Sherlock isn’t certain why it bothers him, but it does. “There’ve been no sightings. No credit card activity, nothing on his bank account. We might be out of luck with this one, I hate to admit.” 

“No.” Sherlock is adamant. “We’ll find him. We always do. Check his phone records again. Talk to the neighbours again. Ask around in local shops. We’ll do the same.” 

Lestrade agrees and jogs off to bark at his underlings and John silently materialises beside him. “So,” he says. “I know we’re on a case and that, but – are you getting hungry at all?” 

Sherlock looks at him and frowns again. “Why? Is it – time to eat?” he asks, realising belatedly how idiotic the question sounds. 

John tries unsuccessfully to suppress a smile. “Well, it’s been since this morning,” he points out. “And it’s coming on nine now. I could do with a bit of food. And since we don’t have any particularly pressing leads…?” 

Sherlock hesitates, but John is right. “All right,” he concedes, sighing gustily. “But then I want to start back first thing – ”

“Of course,” John cuts him off. He puts an arm behind Sherlock’s back and propels him forcibly toward the street. Sherlock is surprised but not sure what to say to this. After a moment, John lets his arm drop and clears his throat. “Fact is, I’m starving,” he admits, though Sherlock is perfectly aware that neither of them are thinking of anything other than John’s arm. 

He is equally aware that he is not allowed to mention this. He does not understand the system, but some of the rules have emerged clearly enough. He blinks and turns his focus with an effort to something else, something appropriate. “What do you feel like eating?” he asks. There: good. That was the right thing to ask. 

John smiles at him, and Sherlock cannot help but think that it looks somewhat relieved. (Why? If he didn’t want it addressed, then why did John put his arm about him that way in the first place?) “There’s that Moroccan place just around the corner that we went to once,” he suggests. “After the murder in the corner deli, remember?” 

Sherlock remembers instantly. The memory is three years old, but he tastes couscous, tangy with lemon and mint, the tenderness of lamb still on the bone, of hot, sweet tea, and John sitting across from him, the worry lines that Irene Adler’s general existence put around his eyes easing as he smiled at Sherlock across the candlelit table. “I loved that restaurant,” he says, the words coming unchecked from his mouth. Hearing them, he realises that this was a startlingly strong statement. He compresses his lips slightly and says, trying to cover it, “I just mean – the food was good, and I – perhaps I’m hungrier than I realised. It’s a good suggestion.” 

John gives him a slightly odd look, but his smile doesn’t falter. “In that case, shall we?” he asks. 

Sherlock nods stupidly and sweeps off down the pavement, John keeping perfectly in stride beside him. He keeps his focus on the lamb tagine and tries not to say anything incriminating, but they’re seated at the same table in the corner as they were three years ago, and John’s eyes deepen to midnight in the low lamp hanging over their table, in the candles flickering amongst the plates. He drinks his mint tea, piping hot, and wills himself not to even think about reaching across the table to lay his hand over John’s where it’s resting on the tablecloth. It’s far too dangerous to entertain such fantasies in John’s presence. 

They walk home. Sherlock is unaware of the silence between them until John breaks it, saying lightly, “You’re quiet tonight. Tired from the case?” 

This isn’t quite right. “No,” Sherlock says, aware that his brows have furrowed together and that his answer is inadequate. He searches for a better response. “Though I suppose it’s somewhat frustrating not having any leads.” 

John glances at him out the corner of his eye. “Perhaps we should talk to Elaine again,” he suggests. 

Sherlock thinks immediately of her talk of _unresolved sexual tension_. “I can’t see how that would be helpful,” he says stiffly. “After all, the entire reason she came to us is that she knows nothing.” 

“‘You know nothing, Elaine Snow,’” John quips. 

Sherlock turns his face, thoroughly confused and waiting for an explanation. “That’s not her surname,” he begins, waiting for John to set him to rights. 

John elbows him. “Pop culture reference,” he chides. “Game of Thrones, remember?” 

Sherlock does. “Ah. Yes. I see.” They walk several more paces in thoughtful silence and then he says, “I’m not sure she would appreciate being told that, however.” 

John snickers. “Possibly not.” He takes out his keys and lets them in. “I have a small confession to make,” he says, looking back over his shoulder as Sherlock follows him into the house. 

“Oh?” Sherlock tries to refrain from staring too obviously at John’s arse directly before his eyes on the stairs, distracted by it. 

John closes the door behind Sherlock once they’re both inside and they take off their coats and shoes. “Yeah, actually,” he says. “I’ve been working ahead a little in the violin book. I hope that’s all right. I was getting bored of my etude.” 

“Ah!” Sherlock’s interest sparks. He goes to his chair and sits down, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. “How much further did you go?” 

John’s face floods with interest upon seeing his reaction and he goes to the music stand to get the book. “I played through the second and third etudes, then this Minuet in D, this Raindrops one – though I didn’t quite get it – and then I started having a go at this Waltz in E but it’s a little too hard.” 

Sherlock smiles. “Show me,” he requests, and John goes to the violin case at once. 

“Okay – bear in mind that they’re quite rough,” he warns. “I just wanted to tell you that I was working ahead a bit. If you think these are too hard for me, that’s fine. I just got bored with that first one.” 

“Of course you did,” Sherlock says, waving this away. “Let’s hear what progress you’ve made so far.” 

“Don’t expect too much,” John says, but lifts the instrument to his shoulder and begins to play. He keeps his eyes on the music at all times, a look of concentration on his face so intense that it makes Sherlock feel dizzy. It’s there in the lines between his eyes, the set to his jaw, his lips pressed together as he plays studiously through the second etude in the book. When he asks if he should continue, Sherlock waves him ahead without speaking, not entirely trusting himself to do so. 

John plays surprisingly well, in fact. It’s very technical and not particularly musical, but that will come, Sherlock thinks. He masks his face into something approaching studious interest alone and waits for the third etude to finish, which it does quickly, being quite a short piece. John draws the bow off the final note and raises his eyebrows in question, his gaze shifting to Sherlock. “Good,” Sherlock says briefly. “Go on. Play Raindrops.” 

He already suspects he knows what the issue is here and he is correct. John begins to play and after four notes, Sherlock shakes his head and gets to his feet. John lowers the bow. “No?” 

“No,” Sherlock says, but keeps it kind. “It’s not your fault, however; most books designed for beginners would have included an explanation about this. This one relies on the teacher and I have failed to provide the lesson required.”

“I’m the one who worked ahead,” John reminds him. “So what have I got wrong, then?” 

Sherlock comes around to look at the music on the stand and points. “You see these markings here?” John makes a sound of affirmation. “Those are pizzicato indications. You play pizzicato by plucking the string rather than bowing it. May I?” 

John surrenders the violin to him. “Please.” 

He turns the same look of intense concentration on Sherlock himself now, and Sherlock discovers that he finds it almost unbearably arousing. He clears his throat and reminds himself sternly to focus. “Like this,” he says. “You keep hold of the bow like so, keep the same note fingerings with your left hand, and pluck the string with your right, while holding the bow.” He plays a five-note scale to demonstrate. 

“Oh, I see,” John says. “What’s the point of it?” 

Sherlock shrugs. “It gives the composer a wider range of choice. It’s also difficult to play light, staccato – detached – notes with the bow.” He points at the piece on its page with the bow. “It’s possible, but listen to the difference.” He plays carefully through the piece with the bow, keeping each note as brief as possible and detached from the rest. “Definitely possible. But listen to it with pizzicato.” He plays it again, finger plucking deftly at the strings, trying to ignore John’s eyes, his magnetic presence, but it’s difficult. 

“I get it,” John says, the instant Sherlock finishes the little piece. “And that way it actually sounds like raindrops. I see.” 

Sherlock lets a ghost of a smile touch his lips. “Give it a try,” he says, offering the violin back. 

John takes it and frowns a little. “All right, so I’m meant to somehow keep hold of the bow and pluck with the same hand?” He tries it and drops the bow on the second note. “Oh God, sorry! That’s probably, what, several hundred pounds there?” 

Several thousand, Sherlock does not say, bending swiftly to retrieve the bow. “It’s fine. Don’t worry.” He gives it back. “Hold it with these fingers – no, not like – use the fourth and fifth fingers and pluck with your index. Here.” He goes around to stand behind John and arranges his fingers properly on the bow with his own hand covering John’s. The proximity and contact between them are instantly addictive for Sherlock and he discovers he is tremendously reluctant to pull away this time. “Then you keep doing the same thing with your left hand,” he says, adjusting John’s fingers there, too, his arms curving around John, the heat of John’s back radiating outward and soaking into Sherlock’s front. His exhalation is shaking. He forces himself to take a large step backward, trying not to even think the words _unresolved sexual tension_. He inhales deeply, trying to steady himself, and says, “Try it again.” 

Somehow he gets himself to his chair with his dignity more or less intact and listens to John cautiously pluck his way through the little technical exercise. The look of concentration on John’s face is tremendously appealing and he finds himself unable to look away, half-hiding his face behind his carefully-posed hands. John keeps his eyes on the music until the end of the piece, making the occasional mistake but always correcting himself immediately. He grimaces a little at the end. “Bit rough,” he comments, semi-apologetically. 

“On the contrary,” Sherlock says, inwardly pleased by how steadily his voice emerges. “Impressive for a beginner, in fact.” 

He doesn’t miss the way John’s face brightens for a split second before hiding it with another frown. “I’ll practise,” he says in lieu of acknowledging what Sherlock said. 

“Do that,” Sherlock says. He gets to his feet again and goes to the filing cabinet in search of another book. “However, I have something else for you as well. I think you’re ready for this.” 

“I haven’t played you that Waltz yet,” John says, not quite protesting. “Though I’m still pants at it…”

Sherlock waves it off. “Play it for me if you like, but I have something better.” 

John’s interest is piqued. “What is it?” he asks as Sherlock moves back toward him, looking through the pages. 

He puts the book down on the stand in front of John over the beginner book. “It’s a real piece, not an exercise,” he says. “A small one.” 

“Sonatina in G Minor,” John reads. “It’s long…”

“Only two pages,” Sherlock reassures him. “That’s still quite short. It’s a slight leap ahead, but as you seem so keen, I think this will hold your attention a little longer. A sonatina is a small sonata, which is usually a multi-movement work. Take it slowly. Break it down into sections. It’s only a little harder than that Waltz, but it’s proper music. I think you’ve proven yourself up to the challenge.”

A light comes into John’s eyes at this and he smiles, looking at the page. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” he says. “Though I’m certainly not going to start learning it while you’re hanging about.” He moves around the stand and goes to put the instrument away, as careful as ever. “Ready for tea?” he asks lightly, but Sherlock still hears tension beneath the levity. 

Is it about the piece? he wonders. Or the unplayed Waltz? Surely not. (What, then?) “Starting to be,” he says instead, keeping to the disguise of the surface conversation, and wondering if he will ever properly grasp the real one going on beneath. 

*** 

It isn’t, he reflects that night, gazing gloomily up at the ceiling dividing his bedroom from John’s, that he is not aware that there are tensions below the surface, things left unsaid. It’s that he remains apparently permanently mystified as to the specific nature of said tensions. The problem is that he has become incapable of reading the situation objectively. His bias is his hope that the reason for the tension between them is that John is also experiencing some manner of unfulfilled emotional yearning, but Sherlock is well aware that this is not the most likely of answers and that his desire for it to be so it skewing his perspective. Lying awake in the small hours of the night, he forces himself to consider the other possibilities: 

John is acting strangely because he was not satisfied with Sherlock’s explanation regarding his apparent friendship with Mary and this is bothering him to such an extent that it’s creating tension, yet he feels that further discussion of the topic would be fruitless. John has proven to be a somewhat possessive friend in the past, demonstrating overt signs of jealousy when Sherlock appears close to anyone else. Even Moriarty was subject to this jealousy, logic notwithstanding. If this is the case, then Sherlock understands why his perceived closeness with the woman who lied to John and betrayed him, not least in having shot _him_ , would bother him. However, he is equally uncertain how to persuade John to believe that he was tolerating Mary for the sake of John and John alone. It’s true that he tried to make himself like her. John had made it clear that her presence in their lives was to be a permanent one; the choice therefore had been to accept Mary or lose John. 

Perhaps it isn’t that. Perhaps it’s merely that John is still sorting through the emotional wreckage of his marriage, the loss of the child he’d thought was his own, the fall-out of Sherlock’s falsified suicide and startling return, and the doubled fear of having nearly lost him again, first via Mary’s bullet, and secondly through the one Sherlock put in Magnussen’s head, leading to his aborted exile. But this does not feel right. Sherlock used to scoff at the notion of gut instinct, insisting that logic and reason could always find the answers necessary, but John’s own gut instinct has proven too useful over the years to be able to dismiss it wholly. It doesn’t fit: if John is still feeling disgruntled (or worse) about Sherlock’s own deception and return, why would it be surfacing only now? Or if the more recent scare over Mary’s shot is still bothering him, why is it more present now than it was before Christmas, closer to the shot itself? No. Sherlock dismisses this theory. 

The worst possibility is the most likely, and he has thus avoided looking at it directly until now: the possibility that John suspects how he feels, does not feel the same way, is not remotely interested in that sort of relationship between them, and feels awkward because of it. Sherlock is well aware that this is most likely the case. He has done his utmost to avoid displaying his feelings for John, yet these things have a habit of making themselves known of their own accord. He’s seen the signs in clients, victims, and perpetrators many, many times. But the transport is weak and betrays these sensitive, uncontrollable things. It’s nothing more than an imbalance of chemicals, he tells himself, still staring at the ceiling, while another corner of his mind immediately rejects this. _No. I would die for him. That’s more than chemical imbalance._

If this third possibility is the truth, then he must learn to contain it better, or he _will_ lose John’s friendship over it. He thinks of Elaine WhateverHerNameIs and her notions of _unresolved sexual tension_ and thinks, gritting his teeth, that said tension is surely on his side alone. John can feel it, and is made uncomfortable by it. This must be why he stiffens nearly every time Sherlock moves into his space, gets close to him – because the tension is invariably higher every time they are in close proximity to one another. He thinks of what Elaine said about all of that: when it’s just obvious that the other person is attracted. When you can just feel the chemistry in the air between you: that’s what she said. Sherlock can definitely detect the tension, but as long as he remains uncertain as to the reason behind it, it would be disastrous to reveal his feelings before ascertaining whether or not they would even be welcome. 

Sherlock sighs in great frustration and turns onto his side, yanking viciously on the pillows until they’re supporting his head properly, and closes his eyes tightly. Sometimes the only way he can sleep is to imagine John lying curled behind him, his short, slim thighs shunted into the space behind Sherlock’s knees, an arm wrapped around his chest. It’s a long-time favourite fantasy, almost innocent, one that he’s had for years. There are the other fantasies, of course, whose details are always extremely vague because he lacks the relevant experience to flesh them out in clarity, but these are not what he turns to when he lacks the basic comfort of another person just there with him, holding him, witnessing him. Taking his sometimes fleeting sense of reality and anchoring it in something solid and real, because if John is there, then everything has meaning. 

He feels the ache of the lack of John, of John’s absence in a place where he has never been, down to the marrow of his bones. Sherlock curls in on himself and lets the hunger snarl through his frame. He wants John desperately. There are better, deeper ways of expressing it, but he’s never allowed himself to put it into words, not even within his own head. He lies awake until the sun has begun to rise, letting the want devour him. At some point, in the safe masking of daylight and ritual, there will be bits and pieces of comfort: in the violin lessons, in working together, in the case of Robert Wexford, in the daily exchange of what and when to eat. But in the heart of the night, his fierce need for John consumes him. 

*** 

Sherlock begins to distance himself physically from John, actively avoiding any contact. He deftly accepts items passed without letting their fingers touch. He refrains from giving anything directly to John in return, setting them down near him instead. He keeps himself from leaning into John’s space, touching him on the shoulder, standing anywhere within one metre of him. It’s a high price to pay, but he is determined not to drive John away with his awkward, unwanted feelings, should this latter theory of his sleepless night prove to be the case. And yet, he realises now, these small, fleeting touches had been what he’d told himself were the most he could ever expect, and now even these are denied. He feels as though he could starve to death without them, but having John there in the flat and in his life is surely worth this sacrifice. 

If John has noticed, he has not commented. Instead, he throws himself into the little sonatina with determination. Four days have passed since there has been any movement on the Robert Wexford case, and John has requested daily lessons. Sherlock remains steadfastly in his chair and forces himself to comment from there. Instead of showing John directly, Sherlock has him look up note fingerings on the chart, or describes the correction. ( _“Higher on the neck. A little more. There: you can hear that it’s in tune now, when the perfect fifth sounds clean that way.”_ ) It’s maddening, and yet he can at least take solace in John’s technical aptitude for the task. It’s still not particularly musical, but John is playing the violin the way a soldier would. Sherlock yearns to tell him to play the way a surgeon would, but decides to skirt the entire conversation that would ensue about what, precisely, that means. He wants to tell John to play with his heart, not just his rationality, his determination, his grimly mechanical precision, but he is frankly afraid to know what that would sound like – or what it wouldn’t. 

Some of this is going through his head as John finishes another play-through of the little piece, sitting on the coffee table with the music stand lowered to accommodate his position. His finger neatly plucks the final pizzicato and he lowers both the violin and bow. “I think I’m done for now,” he announces, getting to his feet. “You getting hungry?” 

“Mmm,” Sherlock says, making it sound affirmative. He doesn’t look up from his laptop. “Are we staying in? Cooking? Should I make something?” 

John crosses the sitting room to put the violin away, snapping the case closed. “It’s raining,” he says. “Let’s stay in.” 

Sherlock watches him go into the kitchen now, opening the fridge door. He should stay where he is, he knows… yet John’s presence draws him like a magnet. And besides, he has the iron-clad excuse of needing to explore and discuss dinner options now. He gets up and follows John to the fridge. He spots cream and parmesan, and says spontaneously, “There’s that shrimp you picked out in the freezer, in the garlic lemon sauce. We could make pasta.”

“Pasta would be perfect tonight,” John declares. He bends and retrieves a clove of garlic and an onion. “Maybe broccoli, do you think?”

“Definitely.” Sherlock moves around him to get a wide, low frying pan and a large pot and sets each one on an element. Evidently they are cooking together tonight. He secretly relishes this, especially since his self-imposed physical distancing from John. They don’t often cook dinner together and he’s always liked it, noticing this especially when John was home during the late summer and autumn, after he was shot. Sherlock turns the heat on low under the pan and takes the shrimp out of the freezer. John moves behind him to get the pot, taking it to the sink to fill. He puts it on to heat, then washes the head of broccoli he took out. It’s rather like a dance, Sherlock muses. Neither of them has said which tasks he will perform; instead they are simply preparing the meal together in perfect harmony, without any need to discuss these mundane things. In fact, things are quieter between them than they sometimes are, he realises, turning the shrimp through the butter sliding through the pan and standing back to let John add the broccoli. John takes the onion, so Sherlock reaches for the garlic and begins to methodically peel and chop it, wondering why John is so quiet. Is it only his imagination, or is it actually awkward? Is it only he who is awkward? Why is no one speaking? (Is it a companionable silence?) He genuinely cannot tell, and not knowing makes him feel off-balance, uncertain of every single thing that he does. 

He moves the shrimp with a wooden spoon and adds the garlic and John’s onions as John pours pasta into the boiling water. Should he say something? Attempt to start a conversation? Perhaps, but he cannot think of a single thing to say other than completely boring things directly related to dinner and the cooking thereof. Perhaps even that would be better than this horrible silence. Sherlock clears his throat. “I think we might have a bottle of white wine in the fridge,” he offers. (Does he sound strained? Quite possibly.) 

John doesn’t. “Oh, lovely,” he says, sounding very casual. Is it too casual? Sherlock cannot tell. “Let’s have a look, then… ah yes, here we are.” John takes out the bottle. “I’ll open that and let it breathe.”

He goes to the table and clears it off, setting out plates and glasses as Sherlock lowers the heat and pours cream into the pan, then parmesan, black pepper, a pinch of salt. When it has reduced very slightly, he drains the penne John chose and tosses it in the sauce, coating it well. Behind him at the table, John is pouring the wine. “I think we’re about set,” Sherlock says, transferring the pasta to a bowl and bringing it over to the table. “Have we forgotten anything?” 

John puts his hands on his hips and surveys the simple meal. “I don’t think so. Maybe the parmesan?” 

“I’ll get it.” Sherlock retrieves this swiftly and they sit, facing each other. 

John lifts his glass. “Bon appétit,” he says, that same careful levity in his voice, the studied casualness.

What is it masking? Sherlock longs to rip it away and demand to know what John isn’t saying, what he’s covering, and why. He forces the frustration down his throat. “Bon appétit,” he says in return, and they eat in silence. Sherlock tries to tell himself that it’s merely that neither of them has anything in particular to say. The posited theory sits on the surface of his brain and refuses to be absorbed. And yet, while it’s not precisely comfortable, the air between them feels charged, somehow. Interestingly so, in a way that Sherlock – somewhat to his own surprise – would rather not leave the room and miss. This is baffling and he is loath to come up with an adequate explanation. He knows that he always wants to be wherever John is, but that he craves this particular tension, too, is odd. 

The silence lengthens. They’ve both finished eating. Sherlock touches his serviette to his mouth and puts it down. He glances at John to find him looking across at – is he looking at Sherlock’s hands? Suddenly, out of nowhere, John lifts one of his own hands and reaches across the table. For one insane instant Sherlock actually believes that John is about to lay his hand over Sherlock’s own. But it cannot possibly be that. He snatches his hand out of the way and looks for anything else to fit the gap left in the vacuum of his impossible thought. The wine! He shoves the bottle toward John and words come spilling stupidly out of his mouth. “You must want to finish the wine,” he blurts out. “Go on – there’s less than half a glass left. I’ll just – put the kettle on!” 

He waits half a heartbeat to see whether or not John will accept this ridiculous flurry of words, his heart pounding so hard it must be audible. John pauses, his hand still stretched out toward Sherlock. Then he deliberately places it instead on the wine bottle. “Yes, of course,” he says, his voice sounding completely forced. “Ta.” 

Sherlock feels instantly wretched and cannot even decipher the precise reason why. He shunts his chair back and goes to fill the kettle, grateful for the excuse to hide his face. He has never been able to mask his emotions in critical moments and right now he can feel his face flaming with heat. He busies himself at the counter, fiddling with the teapot and deciding to rinse it out, then scooping loose tea in from one of the canisters. His hands are shaking. Behind him John is utterly silent and Sherlock has no idea what to make of this. What if he was wrong? What if John really was reaching for his hand? What if that was, at last, the one opportunity that finally opened, and he missed it? Made John think he didn’t want that, that he saw John clearly moving to take his hand and yanked it out of reach before any such thing could happen? With his back still to John, Sherlock grimaces in agony. If only he _knew_! It’s highly unlikely – he doesn’t know what John _was_ doing, but it’s never been a strong possibility that it was _that_. He has lost all ability to be even remotely objective about this. 

He occupies himself with tidying things up at the worktop, then, finally composed enough to turn around, goes back to the table to collect their plates. John is hunched over, his fingers locked together around the base of his wineglass. He isn’t drinking. Sherlock hesitates, opens his mouth for a moment, then realises he has absolutely no idea what to say. (Has he blown this completely?) He still doesn’t know. Behind him, the kettle comes to a boil and begins to whistle. He takes the plates to the sink and runs a bit of water over them, then go to switch the kettle off. He fills the teapot and puts the lid on before turning around again. “That’s – I’ll just – leave that to steep a moment,” he stammers. John doesn’t respond, and Sherlock gets himself out of the kitchen and into the safe harbour of his bedroom. He closes the door behind himself and rakes all ten fingers through his hair, gritting his teeth together in violent frustration. He paces back and forth in a path alongside the bed, wanting to tear out every hair on his head by the root. He is such a colossal idiot! What if that actually _was_ his one chance? What if it never comes again? What if he were to try to remedy the situation and only then found out that John never had any notion of reaching for his hand, but was – stretching his fingers, or reaching for something else. It clearly wasn’t the wine – that was only him accepting the white lie Sherlock babbled out to save face. He has absolutely no idea what really happened, not from the start of the violin lesson to the end of dinner. 

He does not know how much time has passed when he hears John’s step in the corridor. Perhaps twenty minutes? He freezes, listening. John goes into the bathroom and closes the door. Sherlock hears the sound of him unzipping, then quietly relieving himself. The toilet flushes and the sink water runs. The blurred outline of John’s frame moves on the other side of the frosted glass, drying his hands. He stops then, and Sherlock stops breathing. His entire frame is rooted to the floor, frozen with anticipation – the fear that John will confront him about his bizarre behaviour – and the even greater fear that he won’t, that he will simply choose to ignore it. He waits. 

The silence stretches out, but then he hears John sigh, and open the other door leading back into the corridor. His footsteps recede back in the direction of the sitting room, and Sherlock’s entire being wilts with crushing disappointment. The frantic tension of his pacing seeps from his bones like water. He goes to the bed and lies down face first on it, and lets despair wash over him like a wave. 

***

John says nothing about the entire incident the following morning at breakfast. It’s both a relief and letdown. Evidently they are never going to address whatever is going on between them. They each make themselves toast and John makes coffee. Both the coffee maker and coffee itself are back where they always were; moving them was almost the very first thing John did when he came back in the autumn, and Sherlock never bothered changing it, secretly liking John’s proprietary feelings regarding 221B. 

That afternoon, Lestrade calls out of the blue. “It’s Robert Wexford,” he says. “There’s been a sighting on the CCTV.” He is obviously jogging to the cruiser, out of breath, his voice higher than usual. “He’s only just outside the city. I’m sending the location to your phone!” 

“What about Elaine?” Sherlock asks, the question surprising both of them. (Where did that come from, he wonders.) 

“What?” Lestrade sounds confused. “You think we should bring her along? Actually, yeah, that’s a good idea. If Wexford’s been drugged or confused, seeing a familiar face might be useful. I’ll have someone pick her up.” 

Sherlock ends the call and turns to John, to find him already in his jacket and shoes and holding Sherlock’s coat out to him. He opens his mouth to inform John of what Lestrade said, but obviously John already knows. He closes his mouth and takes his coat, neatly avoiding John’s hand at the same time. “Thank you,” he says instead, his voice studiedly neutral. (Good.)

John doesn’t comment on this. All he says is, “Let’s go.” He turns and clatters down the stairs and Sherlock follows, climbing into the taxi that John’s already flagged down after him. The tension is there with them in the taxi, worse than usual. Sherlock looks out the window and jabs at the screen of his phone and tries to pretend he hasn’t noticed, but it’s impossible. John is silent next to him, his gaze directed firmly outside. 

When they finally reach the crime scene, Sherlock pays the driver. John remembers to ask for a receipt so that the NSY will reimburse them, then hurries to catch up. It appears to be a hotel. Lestrade is just climbing out of the police cruiser, slamming the door. “He was seen going inside, apparently of his own free will,” he says as Sherlock comes up, John just behind him. 

Elaine gets out of the backseat of the cruiser, looking nervous. “Are you sure I should be here?” she asks Lestrade, her eyes darting to Sherlock. 

“It could be helpful to him,” Sherlock tells her. He looks at Lestrade. “Do you have a plan, or are we just going to start forcing room doors?” 

“The plan is to see if he’s checked in or not, for starters,” Lestrade says dryly. “I’ll ask. You two look for signs of struggle or someone being held here against his will.” 

“Come on,” Sherlock says tersely to John, who nods and follows him into the front lobby, looking grim. It’s never taken them so long to locate a missing person before. Usually when it’s been this long, they’re not still alive, yet Wexford was seen on camera in a clear, eight-point match on facial recognition scans. He is here. Only the circumstances remain unclear. The front lobby shows nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever. If Wexford has been kidnapped, his kidnappers know what they’re about. He is bending to examine an artificial bougainvillea when Lestrade says his name. He straightens as Lestrade comes over. 

“He’s here,” Lestrade says, keeping his voice down. “He’s checked in.” 

Sherlock sees John’s eyes go to Elaine. “By himself?” John asks quietly. 

Lestrade nods. “Evidently, yeah. Shall we just – go up and knock, then? It’s room 714.”

Sherlock shrugs. “I suppose so.” 

Donovan is speaking to Elaine and sends her over to ride up the lifts with them. None of them speak as they move down the carpeted hallway, large windows overlooking well-manicured grounds, a pond with a curving bridge spanning its width, beams of sunlight drenching the gardens. Sherlock can feel the tension radiating from Elaine. 

Lestrade knocks at the door of room 714, and Robert Wexford opens it. He is wearing jeans and a nice blue cashmere jumper with a collared shirt beneath. He looks relaxed and unharmed, though his expression immediately clouds with confusion upon finding himself face-to-face with a police officer. “Hello?” he says, his brow creasing. “Can I help you?” 

They all stare back at him. “Robert!” Elaine moves forward, pushing past John. 

His perplexity deepens. “Elaine? What are you doing here?” 

“Hang on,” Lestrade interrupts, raising a finger. “You haven’t been abducted, then. You’re just – staying in this hotel. On holiday, is it?” 

Robert glances at him and nods, though his attention is completely on the woman. “I just – needed to get away for a bit,” he says, speaking more to Elaine than to Lestrade. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” 

Sherlock looks at her and sees that her expression is vacillating between joy, anger, and tears. “Robert – I thought you’d gone missing!” she exclaims, her tone betraying the mix of emotions. “No one knew where you were!”

Robert frowns, then catches sight of Sherlock. “Oh my God – you’re Sherlock Holmes,” he says. Realisation seems to be dawning. “So you thought I’d been abducted or something? You told the police I was missing?” 

Elaine has gone very red in the face. “I’m sorry,” she stammers. “I’m an idiot – it’s just that no one knew where you were. I’m sorry – it was none of my business!” 

She turns to rush away, but Robert’s voice stops her. “Wait!” He sounds urgent. “Elaine, stop! Please!”

From fifteen metres away, Elaine stops and turns back. There are tears in her eyes and she looks so humiliated that Sherlock feels a rare prickle of empathy. He glances at John and sees it on his face, too. “What?” Elaine asks, sounding defensive. 

Robert raises a hand and scratches the back of his head, looking awkward. “First, what do you mean, no one knew where I was? I told Len, at the office.” 

“Who is Len?” John asks Lestrade under his breath. 

“The boss. The old, forgetful bloke,” Lestrade tells him. 

Elaine makes a gesticulation. “He’s on holiday, too, and he must have forgotten to tell your colleagues, because everyone there thinks you’re missing, too,” she tells him, a bit defiantly. “It wasn’t just me you didn’t tell.” 

This betrays too much. Sherlock is well aware of her misstep, if she is trying to keep her feelings a secret from Robert. He avoids looking at John. 

Robert takes a few steps toward her and stops with a considerable space still between them. “Look,” he says, still sounding ill at ease, “there’s a reason why I didn’t tell you.” 

Elaine’s face drains of colour as abruptly as she flushed a moment ago. “There’s – you’re seeing someone,” she says, her voice unsteady. “You’re here with her. I should have known. I shouldn’t have – ”

“No,” Robert interrupts forcefully. “I’m not! You’re – that’s way off. Look, I’m rubbish at this – it just got to the point between you and I that I didn’t know what it was and I just had to get away and clear my head and think about it all objectively, and try to figure out how I felt and what I wanted. I was going to check out today and come back home, if you want to know.” 

Elaine is tense. “And – what have you decided?” she asks, obviously steeling herself for bad news. 

But Robert smiles, and suddenly Sherlock sees what she sees in him. “You’ve become a part of my life recently, in a way that I wasn’t really looking for, and maybe that’s why it threw me for a second. Suddenly I realised that I was planning every day around you, around things we might do together, meals we might cook together, restaurants we should try. And I didn’t know what it was, or what you wanted it to be. So I had to come away to figure out what _I_ wanted it to be.” 

“And?” Elaine asks, still looking wary. 

Robert lets out his breath in a gush. “And I realised that there was no question to be asked,” he tells her, his voice becoming gentle. “I didn’t know how you felt or what you wanted, but for me there’s no question whatsoever. I was going to come and surprise you this afternoon. Show up on your doorstep with flowers and ask you to – well – spend the rest of your life with me, if you think you might be up for it. I know it’s a bit of a risky question, given that we’re not even – but – you’ve got to tell me now what you would have said!” 

“Robert – ” Elaine’s voice breaks and she rushes toward him. Robert makes a sound that can only be described as intense relief and his arms open and pull her into his chest. 

Sherlock watches them, his chest aching oddly. His presence, along with John’s and Lestrade’s, has clearly stopped registering. All of this fuss because two people couldn’t bring themselves to tell each other how they felt. It hits far closer to home than is comfortable. He looks at John. John feels it and turns his head. Their eyes meet, and the eye contact is intense and unfiltered for once. Sherlock knows that everything he feels is right there on his face, including his piercing regret over not having expressed it, done anything about it. It seems very much as though John’s face is saying all of the same things, that his regret is foremost, that all of the same want and suppressed yearning and desire and frustration is all there, too. Sherlock can hardly breathe. Is he reading this correctly? He silently lets his face say everything he hasn’t been able to express, feels it flowing across the space between them, as plain as day, and the lines around John’s mouth deepen as his own eyes say all of the same things back, and Sherlock is finally certain. They’ve been a pair of complete idiots, misreading each other’s signals all this time. Sherlock thinks of John reaching for his hand and inwardly curses himself again. He would go to John here and now if it weren’t for the rest of them. (Should he do it anyway?) 

Lestrade clears his throat subtly, jolting them both into breaking the eye contact. He nods with his chin toward the opposite end of the corridor and turns to leave the embracing couple alone. They make for the lifts and descend to the lobby in silence, where Donovan is waiting impatiently. 

“Well?” she demands when they appear. 

“Not a missing person,” Lestrade informs her. “Just a bloke whose boss forgot to tell anyone he was going away. Case closed. Let’s go.” He’s already striding toward the cruiser. “Come on, you two,” he says. “I’ll give you a lift back into town. That can’t have been a cheap cab ride.” 

John mumbles something nondescript and Sherlock says nothing at all, tuning out Donovan wanting to know where Elaine is. Sitting in silence in the back of the cruiser for forty minutes will be agony, now that he knows what he so urgently needs to tell John, risk be damned. But it wouldn’t have been much better in a taxi, he tells himself. The tension stays with them all the way back to Baker Street, but it’s different now. John’s fingers are drumming against his knee in anticipation of some sort, but Sherlock cannot decipher precisely what that means. But it will be all right now, won’t it? he wonders. They’ll talk at last. At least he’ll know where John stands. He finds himself less certain of the emotion he saw in John’s eyes now, though he thought he was quite sure at the moment. This could be wishful thinking again – but either way, he’ll know soon, because once they’re alone inside, they _will_ talk about it at last. He can feel it, illogical as that is. 

The cruiser stops in front of Baker Street. They both mutter their thanks and get out. John goes first, his key already in hand, and leads the way upstairs, Sherlock’s heart thumping as he wonders who will speak first and what they will say. (Should he speak first? If so, what should he say?) He closes the flat door behind himself and pulls off his coat and hangs it up. He steps out of his shoes. “John,” he begins, watching John do the same things, hanging his jacket on a hook behind the door. 

John surprises him, though. Instead of responding, he says, his tone deliberately even, “I’d like to play my sonatina for you, if you wouldn’t mind giving it another listen.” 

Sherlock tries not to frown, though he can feel the confusion forming between his brows regardless. This is… unexpected. He’d thought, after that intense moment in the hotel corridor, that they were on the same page in terms of needing to talk about their own, unresolved tension at last. But he doesn’t want to disappoint or refuse John either, so he says, “All right, then.” He goes to sit down in his chair, where he normally hears John’s lessons, and crosses his legs, steepling his fingers under his chin. 

John goes to the violin case and takes out the instrument, tuning it a little. His ear is improving, Sherlock notes. “I’m going to play it and I want you to be really critical,” John tells him. “Tell me exactly what I’m doing wrong.” 

“If you do anything wrong, I will,” Sherlock says, trying to make it sound light. He cannot fathom what John is up to, but there is a particular firmness to his mouth that makes Sherlock think that the sonatina is not the only thing on his mind. Pay attention, he tells himself. (What does he want?)

John plays through the whole of the little piece, which lasts about five minutes. He plays the pizzicato of the final notes, then lowers the bow. “Well?” he asks, raising his chin from the rest, his brows lifting. “Comments?” 

Sherlock takes a slow breath, then says, “It’s good, John. It’s very good. You’ve clearly been practising.” 

“But,” John prompts. “I know it could always be better. How is my stance?” 

Suddenly Sherlock realises that John is prompting him, giving him cues. Perhaps he’s decided, based on the attempt last night with their hands that too direct an approach would make Sherlock jittery. Perhaps he is trying to create a situation in which Sherlock will instigate it himself. Perhaps he is deliberately trying to be this obvious about it, too. In that case, Sherlock thinks, far be it for him to refuse to take his cue at last. He uncrosses his legs and gets up. “It’s not bad,” he says, walking around behind John the way he did at the beginning of their lessons. “Your right elbow could still be a little higher; you’re dropping it at times.” He puts his hands on John’s right elbow and left wrist. “This wrist could be arched a little more, too. There. That’s it.” He hesitates, not moving away from John. “There’s only one other thing to be said about it, because technically it’s quite good already.” 

“What’s that?” John asks, and Sherlock feels the heat radiating from his back. 

He leans into it and turns his face downward, his mouth and nose nearly touching John’s ear. “You play it very technically. It’s good, but now make it say something. I know it’s just a little sonatina, but infuse your own meaning into it.” John’s proximity is dizzying, particularly after having denied it to himself for days and days now. He lets go of John’s wrist and elbow and puts his hands instead on John’s waist, lightly but tangibly.

John exhales, and it’s shaky. “Sherlock…”

“Play it – for me, John,” Sherlock murmurs, letting his lips brush the hair just behind John’s right ear. He doesn’t miss the way John shivers, but he begins to play nonetheless. Sherlock makes sounds of encouragement at every small thing John does well and utters meaningless bits of praise, his mouth lipping at John’s right ear. At one point John makes as if to stop, but Sherlock urges him mercilessly on. “Don’t stop. Play it all the way through.” He gets closer still, his eyes closed, his face buried in John’s hair. John leans back into him without shame and Sherlock’s hands stroke down over his sides and hips. 

John plays in a way that Sherlock has never heard before, the tone turning warmer, yet the minor melody keening at Sherlock’s heartstrings and tugging them plangently, and now he is sure of John’s feelings at last. He’s been completely blind. His heart is pounding into John’s back so hard that John must be able to feel it. The pizzicatos come at last. John is breathing deeply, his pulse thudding from his back into Sherlock’s chest. He lowers the violin. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, his voice heavy with emotion.

“I didn’t know how,” Sherlock says, his lips brushing John’s neck too lightly to be called a kiss. “I’m telling you now.” 

John manages to place the violin and bow carefully on the side table beside his chair, then turns around. His eyes are blazing with something Sherlock has never allowed himself to even imagine could be possible. John says his name and then his mouth is on Sherlock’s, warm and so intensely sweet that Sherlock’s knees nearly give way. He gets his arms around John’s shoulders and John’s come around his middle, his mouth opening under Sherlock’s lips.

Sherlock sways into him, his arms tight around John’s shoulders, drinking the kiss in deeply. He has never kissed anyone this way before, not with the weight of what he feels for John behind it. Not with years of unspoken yearning driving it forward. He feels all of the emotion sitting in a lump in his throat and clings to John even harder. 

John breaks away after a little, his eyes opening, darkly starred with as much feeling as Sherlock could dream of, all of it stamped plainly over his entire face, and he is so beautiful that Sherlock cannot speak. John spares him, his arms still wound around Sherlock’s waist. “All this time,” he says, his eyes moving from Sherlock’s mouth to his eyes. “All this bloody time, Sherlock!” 

“I know.” Sherlock hears himself, apologetic. “I’m sorry. I didn’t – ”

“No, _I’m_ sorry,” John cuts in. “I should have just – but I was afraid to take the risk, and – ”

“No, I know,” Sherlock overlaps him, wanting, needing to explain himself. “I couldn’t let myself believe that you might actually want this. I made such a hash of it.”

“Oh, Sherlock!” John pulls him even closer, hugging him tightly, and Sherlock is finally able to let go fully and hold John to himself as closely as he’s desired for years. He can feel the lump in his throat stinging moisture into his eyes. All of this wasted time. He wonders if they could have avoided all of the trauma with Mary, the shot, the baby. Magnussen. “And to think,” John says into his jaw, “I thought you didn’t want this because lately you’ve been avoiding my touch whenever you could. And last night – I thought it was so obvious then, that I very clearly went to take your hand and you just as obviously rejected it. I very nearly lost hope there, Sherlock. And then you went and shut yourself in your room and I thought you were avoiding me and I didn’t know if I should apologise or what.” 

“I panicked,” Sherlock says, his face in John’s hair. “I was an idiot. I didn’t know what to do. I regretted it immediately. Even then, I wasn’t completely sure that you _were_ reaching for my hand. I thought I couldn’t read anything about you objectively, that my desire for this was falsely colouring everything you said or did.” 

“And I thought I’d been so obvious that it was pathetic,” John says, almost moaning. “I thought for sure you knew how I felt by then and that you didn’t want it. Even before – on Valentine’s, when you made that nice steak dinner. I almost thought you’d done that on purpose, made us this nice dinner and I thought maybe we would talk about it at last, but then you brought up Mary, as if I was still mourning the end of the marriage or something. And instead of explaining, I just got gruff and angry about the violin thing. I’ve messed this up so many times, too. But then today – it all just became clear.” 

Sherlock turns his face even more deeply into John’s hair and says it at last, the words he’s never even permitted himself to say within the sanctuary of his own head. “I love you.” It comes out muffled by John’s hair, but he feels a spasm wrack through John’s back, feels him pulling away to look up into Sherlock’s face. 

“What did you say?” he demands, and Sherlock is startled to see that John’s eyes are wet. 

He repeats it, his voice unsteady but quite certain, and John seizes his face and kisses him fiercely. He says it back between kisses, each kiss lasting longer and going deeper. Sherlock feels as though he is dissolving, that his entire being is melting into John, blending into John completely. John is holding him tightly, supporting his weight, which is good because Sherlock’s knees are precariously close to giving way. Acute desire is streaking southward like magma, pooling between his legs, his heart ablaze with emotion so potent he feels high. He cannot speak; the only thing he is capable of doing with his mouth is kissing John, small sounds of desperation forming in his throat and coming out his nose. John’s arms are strong around him, his small, perfect hands pressing into Sherlock’s back. When they slide lower and grip at Sherlock’s arse, Sherlock breaks away from the kiss, gasping, his flesh hardening against the seam of his trousers. He would be embarrassed if desire weren’t drowning everything else out right now. He pants into John’s cheek and attempts to say his name. 

“I know – I need you!” John gasps back, his voice as urgent as everything in Sherlock’s body feels. “Can I – can we – ?” 

“Yes!” He doesn’t know the specifics of the question, but it doesn’t matter: the only answer there is right now is _Yes_ , unqualified and unbounded. 

John moans. “Bedroom?” 

“I can’t – it’s too far – I need – ” His desperation is rising, his fingers clawing at John’s clothing, needing with all his being to touch him, skin-to-skin, cell-to-cell, fuse himself to John forever. Besides which, his legs aren’t functioning at the moment. 

“Okay – okay.” John is trying to soothe him, his voice wrecked with undisguised lust of his own. His fingers are unbuttoning Sherlock’s shirt and Sherlock feels the wall between the kitchen and the doorway press up against his back and realises that John has backed him into this for support. He has never experienced arousal this acute and it’s clouding everything in a haze of red mist, his words turning to garbled syllables in his mouth, fingers turning clumsy in the intensity of their need. Somehow he and John jointly get John out of his jumper and t-shirt and then John reaches for the button of Sherlock’s trousers. He stops, though, his lips hovering just over Sherlock’s. His eyes open halfway. “You’re sure – you want this?” he asks, confirming. 

Sherlock nods jerkily. “Please – John – ” He is incapable of saying anything else. He takes John’s hand and slides it lower, wanting him to feel exactly how much he wants this. 

Their fingers tangle together as John cups the hardness in Sherlock’s trousers and he moans again. “Sherlock…” His voice disappears into a whisper, his hand pressing in harder, warm through the material, and he leans in and puts his mouth on Sherlock’s again. The kiss is long and deep and Sherlock is the first to open his mouth this time, wanting to feel John’s tongue on his again, and when he does, the feeling transfers itself directly to his aching erection, which John is caressing rhythmically through his trousers. Sherlock rubs the back of his free hand over the front of John’s jeans, feeling his corresponding arousal and wishing that the denim were thinner. He fumbles at the button and zip and John helps him, not breaking the kiss, guiding Sherlock’s hand directly into his underwear. 

The kiss breaks off again, Sherlock’s lungs grasping after air, the feel of John’s erection intoxicating against his palm. John succeeds in getting his trousers open now and is touching him through the thin layer of his cotton briefs. Sherlock’s breathing has gone directly to hell, broken into shallow pants, and suddenly he thinks that perhaps this would be easier if they were lying down, after all. He finds John’s eyes and John nods, not even knowing what he was going to say. Sherlock says it anyway. “Bedroom,” he says, the word rasping with lust, and John smiles, though his eyes are flooded with dark arousal of his own. They move toward it together, hands still down one another’s trousers, still trying to kiss. 

Once inside the room, John bends a little and strips Sherlock’s trousers off his legs, then neatly steps out of his jeans and underwear. “Get those off you,” he instructs, nodding toward Sherlock’s undergarments, and Sherlock complies immediately, feeling less awkward than he imagined he might as his penis bobs upward, freed of its restrictions, standing out from his body, flushed and full. John’s eyes go to it and he licks his lips and clears his throat. “Wow,” he says, not filtering it, and it does much to bolster Sherlock’s sense of confidence. His eyes come back to Sherlock’s, who drags his own from the look he was stealing at John’s anatomy. “You’re gorgeous,” John tells him, his face open and candid, unfiltered emotion bracketing his eyes and rendering him so beautiful that once again, Sherlock finds himself unable to speak. 

He opens his mouth, trying to, but John spares him, sealing their mouths together again. He steps closer, pressing Sherlock up against the wall and their erections knock together. Sherlock’s hands go of their own volition to John’s arse, holding him as close as possible, arousal stabbing through him with every pulse of his heart. Feeling John against him this way, unabashedly, thoroughly aroused, is – incomparable. There are no words. John’s penis feels thick against his, the heat of it pulsing into Sherlock’s sensitive skin in waves. Despite the wall, John has his hands on Sherlock’s arse, too, and it feels better than he could have imagined it ever would. They kiss and kiss, pressing themselves together, and only when Sherlock hears a moan escape his lips does John finally take things to the next step, walking him backward over to the bed. They fall into it, John stretching out along him, his weight satisfyingly heavy and pinning him to the sheets. John is rutting against him and Sherlock lifts himself from the bed to meet him, their eyes locked together. John’s palms are pressed against his, their fingers locked together, and Sherlock thinks fleetingly of last night, when John reached for his hand. Would that have led to this, too? 

John dips his head to kiss him again, his body undulating slowly along the length of Sherlock’s. It’s intensely sensuous and Sherlock’s entire body is responding to it, every hair on his skin pricking and standing on end, reaching out for John and trying to touch him. John breaks the kiss and plants his lips on Sherlock’s throat, biting gently at his pulse point and Sherlock gasps, wishing he knew what to do in turn for John. John frees his hands and Sherlock touches him everywhere he can reach, his hands grasping at John’s sturdy back, the firm curve of his arse, his arms, trying to convey the vastness of his desire, of his bone-deep want for John. His love. He can say it now, put that word to it. It’s never been truer than it is right now. Their eyes meet and Sherlock stretches up for John’s mouth again, putting a hand on John’s face as they kiss, and he feels the vibration as John makes some sort of wordless sound in response to this. John’s tongue curls around his and another bolt of need streaks through Sherlock’s body like a comet. He feels a warmth of pre-release seep out of him and John feels it, too, and groans. He lifts his mouth and asks, urgently, “Lube, Sher – have you got – ”

He’s already reaching for the drawer of the nightstand and Sherlock nods fervently. “Yes, in there – ” John finds it instantly (wonderful, clever John) and gets the cap off with his teeth, spitting it across the room somewhere. He squeezes some into his hand, then reaches down between them to slick a palmful onto Sherlock’s flushed-dark erection, rubbing it firmly as he does so, and it feels so good that Sherlock stops being able to breathe, his breath stuck in his throat and choking there. 

John smiles into his face, his smile like the sun. “Like this?” he asks, the question gentle and completely without thorns. It’s as if he knows very well that no one has ever touched Sherlock this way, caressed this incredibly sensitive, private part of him before. He bites his lip and nods hard, breath returning in shivering gasps, and John goes on touching him, fingers rubbing over his balls and stroking him from root to tip. Sherlock’s entire frame is trembling violently, every nerve ending glittering and sparking, unable to take his eyes from John’s, transparent and vulnerable as the day he was born. When he thinks he cannot possibly take another second of it without combusting messily all over the both of them, John relents and transfers his hand to himself. He repositions himself like they were before, their fingers linked together, John’s lips inches from Sherlock’s, their eyes locked on each other’s. “I can’t even tell you how long I’ve wanted this, Sherlock,” John says softly, and he begins to move again, thrusting against Sherlock in long, smooth motions. 

“Me too,” Sherlock says, the words sounding awkward, but he means them sincerely and John smiles at him again, the smile so warm it sends sunlight to every corner of Sherlock’s quivering form. His fingers are gripping John’s, probably too hard. “I want to touch you,” he says, and John makes a sound of decided approval and releases his fingers. Sherlock puts all ten fingers on John’s arse and lets himself thrust back against John, working out the rhythm with a speed that surprises both of them.

Soon John is moaning, rocking against him. “Oh, God, that’s perfect, Sherl – ah – oh God, yes, just like – fuck, that’s – ahhh!” 

Sherlock can only respond in breathy sounds, non-verbal, but fervent in their need and mounting pleasure. He can feel John’s penis leaking against his own, can feel the rising need in John’s movements. (So hard to switch off, just do this without analysing it.) He makes a valiant effort, giving himself over to the pleasure curling tightly through his body. He no longer has any control over his body, over his impending climax. He is helpless to it, to John, and silently gives in to this. He hears himself make a louder noise than any either of them have made so far, one of his legs curling around John’s hip in a desperate attempt to gain deeper purchase and John understands and wraps his fist around both of them, pumping hard. Sherlock makes another loud, choked-off noise and feels a spasm of pleasure wrack his body, lifting him off the bed. It’s as though he is rising into the air. There is nothing but pleasure and John, which are one and the same in this instant, John who is panting in his ear and thrusting wildly as Sherlock feels himself spurt out stream after stream of liquid desire into John’s hand and then it’s John, his body twisting and stopping for a split second before Sherlock feels it: the hot, wet gush of his release. Then John’s hand is gone and but he’s still moving against Sherlock as Sherlock’s penis splutters out the last of his orgasm, twitching and sensitive but incredibly well-sated. He feels John’s softening against him as he puts his arms around John’s heaving, sweat-dampened back and holds him to himself, fingers in John’s short hair, feeling the heavy heat of his breath against his neck and shoulder, and he knows that he has never felt so close to another person and never will again. There is only John. It could only ever have been John. 

After several minutes of this unimaginable bliss, John raises his head just enough to look into Sherlock’s eyes. He pushes Sherlock’s hair back from his sweaty forehead and says, “I love you. God, I love you.” He doesn’t give Sherlock time to respond, his face dropping down to kiss him again, and Sherlock thinks in that moment that he could die then and there and be happy. This is all he has ever wanted, and never believed he could ever have. 

*** 

Some time later, some vague sense of reality returns. Sherlock finds himself on his side, John’s arms around him, his own around John. “I can’t quite believe this is happening,” he muses out loud, and John laughs, as though nothing Sherlock says could give him anything other than delight at the moment. 

“I know,” he says, touching Sherlock’s face. “But it is. It’s hard to believe, but it is.” 

“I thought it was impossible,” Sherlock tells him soberly. “I thought there was no way you could ever want this. Me. Not like this.” 

“I’ve wanted it from the start, you know,” John says, the words very plain. His eyes are midnight, rayed with grey, his long, fair lashes fanning out to frame them. “That’s the truth, Sherlock. It took me awhile to come to terms with that fact, but part of me always knew.”

“Knew what?” Sherlock wants to hear it again, stated specifically. 

John smiles again. “That you’re the only one there’s ever been for me. It’s a fact, Sherlock. Why do you think I came back?” 

Sherlock blinks. “I thought you came back because you had nowhere else to go,” he says honestly. “I thought it was more of a – default than a specific choice, per se.” 

“Mary did a number on me,” John admits. “And like I said, on Valentine’s, I got all stupidly frustrated that you still thought I was moping about Mary or something, when the truth was that I didn’t know how to tell you how I felt, or didn’t know if I should take the chance. But it was Mary I was jealous of, not you! I was jealous of the notion of her spending time alone with you like that, doing something you’d never let me in on. I wasn’t really expecting you to offer to teach me. I only accepted on principle. Only then I realised it was a brilliant way to get you closer to me, even if it was all related to technical stuff.” 

Sherlock feels his own smile creeping across his face. “It was difficult to hide it,” he admits. “Being close to you is like a drug.”

John leans over and kisses him again for a long moment, his hand still cradling Sherlock’s jaw. “I thought that if I made it unmistakeably obvious that I wanted you to touch me, maybe you would finally make a move,” he says. 

“When I finally cottoned on to what you were doing, I did,” Sherlock tells him. “That was why I finally let myself touch you the way I’d kept myself from doing all that time. I wanted to so badly, before.” 

“But why did you get so distant, there?” John asks, his brow creasing. “I thought I was losing you, rather than getting closer.”

Sherlock touches the frown and tries to flatten it with his fingers, smooth the worry off of John’s face. “I was getting worried that you would guess how I felt and be driven away by it. I felt a constant tension between us and worried that you would recognise it as Elaine’s ‘unresolved sexual tension’ on my part.” 

“Idiot,” John says fondly. “Of _course_ there was tension, because _we_ had unresolved sexual tension. Not just you.”

“I couldn’t know that, though,” Sherlock says, feeling his own frown form. “I’ve lost my ability to be objective when it comes to you.” 

“Good,” John says, and kisses him again. It goes on for a long time, their chests and abdomens pressed together. After a little, John pulls away and looks down between them. “We’ve made a mess of ourselves,” he states. “Let me get a flannel.” He turns over and rolls out of bed in spite of Sherlock’s protests, laughingly pulling his fingers from Sherlock’s grasp. “I’ll be right back!” 

Sherlock watches him go, then stretches luxuriously in the bed. He’s honestly never felt so good in his life before. Being with John is an unparalleled high. It’s incomparable. Nothing could ever been as good as this is. John is running a flannel under warm water at the bathroom sink, unconcerned about his nudity. Sherlock studies his arse and decides it’s flawless. Perhaps he should say this aloud. “Your arse is flawless,” he announces, choosing levity over the deeper things swirling through his chest and head. 

John snorts and turns around, finally coming back over. “Says the man with the best arse in Britain. Seriously, Sherlock, I can’t begin to tell you how I’ve lusted after that arse of yours. There is a long list of things I’d like to do with it, provided you’re amenable, of course.” 

“I’m amenable to anything,” Sherlock says recklessly, and realises that he means it. There is nothing he would withhold from John. 

John gets back into bed and doesn’t protest when Sherlock takes the flannel from him. Instead, he props his head up on his elbow and watches as Sherlock cleans his skin with no small measure of fascination. “Anything?” John repeats. 

“Mmm.” Sherlock makes a vague sound of agreement, trailing the flannel over John’s belly and working his way lower. John lets him wipe off his soft penis without embarrassment, though it doesn’t stay entirely soft throughout. Sherlock drops the flannel and touches it with his fingers, completely entranced by this most private part of John. 

John grins and picks up the flannel. “Hey,” he says. “You’re forgetting to let me do you, there. Let me get you before that lot dries.” 

“Okay.” Sherlock assents reluctantly and John picks up the flannel and begins to gently clean his skin, moving in firm, smooth strokes. Sherlock finds himself holding his breath, strangely nervous about this. 

As though picking up on this, John looks up into his face and smiles. “Nothing to worry about,” he says. “You’re bloody gorgeous, you know that?”

Sherlock smiles back and doesn’t say anything, watching John’s face and his movements. John works his way down Sherlock’s torso and doesn’t shy in the slightest from handling Sherlock’s genitals. To his own slight embarrassment, he hardens much more than John did, his penis leaping to life at John’s touch, even through a warm, wet flannel. He squirms a little. “Sorry,” he says, trying not to feel awkward and failing. 

John tosses the flannel behind him in the direction of the bathroom without looking, and keeps his hand between Sherlock’s legs, fingertips resting on his balls while his palm cups the length of Sherlock’s growing erection. “You don’t have a thing to apologise for,” he says, his eyes almost more sincere than Sherlock can bear, and he leans forward and kisses Sherlock once, then again, then a third time. “You are so incredible – and I’ve wanted to touch you since the day we met. All that, with Mary – it was a mistake, every bit of it. It was a giant detour away from what I really wanted. I knew in my heart that it was you I always would have chosen if I’d known the option existed. I just didn’t think I could have that and was trying to make do. The fact that you want this at all, that you want me – after everything I’ve done to botch it up – Sherlock, I – ”

“No,” Sherlock interrupts. “Let’s not try to play who hurt whom more. We were both stupid. I’m the one who told you from the start that I was married to my work – while recruiting you to join my work. And what you went through while I was away – John, I – ”

“You were blackmailed into it,” John says bluntly. “I know that now. And I married a woman who shot you in the heart. And went back to her, knowing that it was you I loved. Can you really forgive that, Sherlock?”

Absurdly, none of this has abated the rise of Sherlock’s arousal in any way whatsoever. “Yes,” he says. He reaches for John and curls his fingers around John’s growing erection. “You’re here. You love me. We’re past the rest of it. It doesn’t matter any more.” 

John bends forward and presses his lips to the bullet hole just off the centre of Sherlock’s chest, his hand caressing Sherlock at the same time. “I love you,” he says starkly. “I’ll never stop loving you. And I’ll never deny it again.” 

“John – ” Sherlock surges forward and finds his mouth, feeling John’s erection grow and twitch and move within his hand. John’s legs move against his, twining around his, and Sherlock finds himself on his back again within moments. He turns them over to bend over John, their bodies writhing together, hands transferring themselves to each other’s backs, arses, whatever they can reach. They turn again and then John is slipping downward to Sherlock’s momentary confusion, but then he feels the wet heat of John’s mouth close around his flesh and hears a shout tear itself from his throat, all ten fingers digging into John’s scalp simultaneously. “ _Oh_ – John – !!” He cannot speak, the pleasure is filling his throat and blocking it, spasms shivering through his body already. John’s head is bobbing rhythmically, his fingers prodding and rubbing and touching in all the right ways and Sherlock thinks that he did not know that a thirty-nine-year-old male body could achieve orgasm twice in such a short space of time, but his is surely about to do precisely that. He is groaning and thrusting helplessly into John’s mouth, having lost control of himself again, legs hugging John’s back, crossed at the ankle. The crescendo rushes upon him and he tries to say John’s name but it’s too late – his hips pump upward in an unstoppable thrust and he feels the back of John’s throat squeezing around his penis even as he begins to come. He is shouting, wordless noises of agonised, exquisite bliss as he comes and comes and comes, John’s perfect throat squeezing and swallowing around him. 

When it’s over, Sherlock’s eyes are wet and John is touching himself, panting against Sherlock’s hip, still lying between Sherlock’s thighs. This is – no, this is unacceptable. “Wait,” Sherlock says urgently, his voice a rasp. “John – let me, please!” 

John makes a sound of agreement and shifts upward, kissing Sherlock hungrily and pulling his hand to the hardness of his leaking erection. Sherlock wants to try it with his mouth, the way John did, but it seems that this is what John wants. He closes his fist around John’s penis and squeezes, moving it over the length of him. John’s hand is there, guiding him, wanting it faster. Sherlock absorbs this information instantly and works his hand over John, and it’s working – John is moaning and panting against his chin now, forehead furrowed as though in pain. His breath hitches and Sherlock instinctively knows what to do, going harder and faster, his own breath hot on John’s forehead. John groans loudly and grips Sherlock’s fist, then comes hard, his entire body jolting as the heat of his release splatters onto Sherlock’s stomach. He comes again and Sherlock looks down in time to see it, rubbing his thumb over the slit of John’s penis, making it spurt again. He keeps touching John until he feels him twitch in oversensitivity, then lifts his hand to his mouth to taste, to ingest John’s very DNA, take this uniquely private taste of John into his mouth. John makes a breathless, low sound at this, then says his name and kisses him again, the kiss panted and breaking over and over again for air, but not stopping. 

Sherlock is struck again by a sense of surrealism, despite the undeniable reality of John’s strong arms around him. Time has stopped meaning anything; there is only John, only this. He gives himself over to it, kissing John as deeply as he knows how and holding him tightly enough to fuse their bodies together. 

Some time later, John is caressing his face, stroking the damp curls back from his forehead like before and saying, “I still can’t believe this is actually happening. I’m the luckiest man alive, Sherlock.” 

“No, I am,” Sherlock says, touching his face. “We both are. We finally worked it out.” 

“Took us long enough. But I’ll tell you something,” John says, his voice and face intense. “We are never going to fuck this up again. Not after all this time. We know that, don’t we? That now that we’ve found it, we’ll never let it go or mess it up.” 

“Never,” Sherlock vows, his voice low. 

John smiles and presses a kiss to his forehead. “You’re incredibly seductive when you want to be, you know,” he says, changing the subject slightly. “When I was playing – I could hardly breathe, with the way you were touching me. And just now – you know exactly what to do, how to make me feel good. We were made for each other, you know.” 

“I do know that,” Sherlock says, meaning it, his eyes probing John’s. “There could never have been anyone else for me, John. It’s always been you. Always.” 

“You’re the only one there is for me, too,” John tells him, his eyes going soft, and he finds Sherlock’s hand and laces their fingers together. “We have so much catching up to do, and I can hardly wait. We’ll do absolutely everything either of us wants to try. Anything at all.” 

Sherlock smiles, hearing his own words echoed back. “Definitely.” 

John’s stomach chooses that precise moment to growl noisily and John looks down at it, slightly abashed. “Sorry,” he says. 

“I have no idea what time it is,” Sherlock says truthfully. “But I suppose it must be evening by now. Past supper time, probably. Is it time to feed you?” 

John’s eyes gleam. “Only if you’re eating, too,” he says. He looks over his shoulder to squint at the clock on the night table. “Oh. Yeah, it’s after eight,” he says. “I guess that’s fair, then.” He twists back. “What do you say? Should we attempt to pull ourselves together and go for dinner somewhere? Or we could stay in and order something, or make something… what do you feel like?” 

Sherlock stretches and yawns, then drapes his limbs around John, getting himself even closer than before. “Mmm. Let’s not go out.” 

John’s laugh is low and sensual. “Fair enough,” he says, without protesting. “Then maybe we should order in. That’s easiest.”

“Okay.” Sherlock puts his lips to John’s again, not caring a fig for eating, though part of him can admit that he _is_ hungry. John kisses back for several long minutes, not resisting it, his arm warm around Sherlock’s back. Then he pulls back, kisses Sherlock once on the chin, and rolls away. 

“I’ll go and get that pile of takeaway menus and bring them back here,” he says. “You stay right there.” 

As if there was any danger of him leaving! Sherlock watches John’s arse retreating toward the kitchen and misses his presence already. (How ridiculous! He has become feebler than a Victorian heroine in the space of less than an hour!) He smiles to himself and cannot feel anything but pleased about it all. 

John comes back with the menus and Sherlock languidly helps him make a decision, more than a little distracted by the expanse of John’s naked skin, which he cannot stop touching now that it’s permitted at last. John calls to place the order, then moves the menus and stretches out beside Sherlock again, fitting their bodies together and kissing him slowly, luxuriantly. After ten minutes or so, John opens his eyes. “Should we attempt to pull ourselves together and at least put dressing gowns on?” 

Sherlock makes a disgruntled sound. “I don’t see any reason for either of us to leave this bedroom in the foreseeable future.” 

John laughs. “Food,” he reminds Sherlock. “I can see that we’re going to need to keep up our energy, so you’re eating, too.” 

“If you insist,” Sherlock says lazily, and kisses him to shut him up. 

John relaxes into it for a few moments, then pulls away and swats him on the arse. “Come on,” he says. “Food. I’m starving.” He gets out of bed, ignoring Sherlock’s protests, and pulls on Sherlock’s maroon dressing gown, which suits him perfectly despite being rather long on him. He tosses Sherlock’s old blue silk one to him, the one with the bullet hole in the sleeve. “I like you best in this one,” he says, and if he meant it as incentive for Sherlock to get up, it works. 

“You do?” He reaches for it and slips his arms into the sleeves, reluctantly getting up and stretching languidly before tying it shut. 

John’s eyes are on his chest, blinking, and he nods. “Yeah. A lot.” 

Sherlock smiles and ambles over to him, crowding John up against the wall beside the dresser with his hips to kiss him even as he manages to extract his credit card from his wallet on the dresser and press it into John’s hand. “Here,” he says, needlessly, and John kisses him again. 

The doorbell rings. Neither of them moves, Sherlock’s front pressed up against John’s. “Maybe Mrs Hudson will get it,” John tries, but Sherlock shakes his head. 

“She’s at a funeral in the West Country. I’ll go.” 

“No, I will.” John smiles and extracts himself, going quickly to the door before either of them can change his mind. 

Sherlock wanders out into the sitting room, smiling at the entire flat and thinking that everything in the world has changed for the better. He surveys the table, which is relatively clean, and thinks of having to sit that far away from John for the entire length of the meal. No. He goes instead to the fireplace and crouches to quickly stack some kindling and light it. He is just arranging a triangle of pine logs above this when John returns with the food. He sits up on his heels and reaches for the blanket on the back of John’s chair. “Bring all that here,” he says, and John comes over. 

“A fire,” he says, with satisfaction. “Perfect.” He comes and sits down next to Sherlock. They lean against each other under the blanket, their backs to John’s chair, and eat ravenously.

After a bit, Sherlock gets up and goes to the kitchen to uncork a bottle of sauvignon blanc from the fridge and pours them both glasses. He tucks the bottle under his arm and brings it all back to John, settling himself against the warmth of John’s side again. “It should be champagne,” he says. “I’ll buy some the next time we’re out.” 

John smiles dreamily at him and clinks their glasses together. “To this,” he says. “To us. At last.” 

“At last,” Sherlock repeats. They clink, sip their wine, and kiss. After they’ve finished eating and the wine bottle is mostly empty, John takes his hand and weaves their fingers together. 

“Can I ask you for something?” he asks, and there’s a hesitation in his eyes that makes Sherlock frown. 

“Yes, of course,” he says, searching John’s eyes. “What is it?” 

John’s other hand closes around his, too. “I wanted to ask if you would play me the waltz you wrote for – for the wedding,” he says, and Sherlock understands the hesitation now. 

He stiffens a little. “I haven’t played it since the wedding,” he says, not refusing. He won’t refuse John, not even this, but surely John knows that the entire wedding is still a difficult memory. 

“I know,” John says, his eyes not leaving Sherlock’s. “And I know why. It’s a strangely painful memory for me, too. Throughout that whole, bizarre period where you were back and I was with Mary, I kept trying to reconcile the two things, tell myself I could make it work: get married to Mary, and have you for a best friend. I tried to convince us both, and it didn’t work on you for a second, did it? I wanted to believe that nothing would change between us, but how could my marrying Mary possibly have not affected things between us? We both wanted this and didn’t think we could have it, didn’t know how to ask for it, and I was the one who’d brought in the roadblock of my engagement, of the third party. And instead of agreeing with me that it could work, that all three of us could be friends and all that rubbish, you publicly gave me away to Mary at the wedding. It was like you’d rejected all of my lies and done the most gracious thing possible and bowed out. It was the last thing I wanted, and that piece was the crowning of it all. I remember dancing with Mary in what felt like a horrible silence – silence, plus your beautiful piece, and I felt like I was being gutted but still had to smile. It was my first dance with my wife. I was supposed to be happy and I knew that I wasn’t. And then it was the final blow, with your deduction about Mary’s pregnancy, and leaving without saying goodbye. I thought I had lost you forever. The first month of my marriage was agony. I wanted you all the time, and when I found you again – ”

“I was high, apparently dating Janine, and soon after that, shot in the heart by your wife,” Sherlock says, cutting into the stream of John’s words. He tightens his fingers in John’s. “Oh, John. I wish I had known. I wish we’d both known.” 

“Me too,” John says, his voice a bit rough. “But you wrote that piece for me. I knew it was for me, not for both of us, no matter what projections Mary liked to make of her supposedly glorious friendship with you. Everything about it felt like it was meant for me and me alone.” 

“It was,” Sherlock tells him, his lips not entirely steady. “I’m – glad you knew that, even then.” He puts his other hand around John’s, all four of their hands tangled together in their laps now. 

John smiles. “So you see why I want you to redeem it for me,” he says, sounding so earnest and wistful that Sherlock finds himself already silently agreeing to it. “I want to hear it again when it’s openly just for me. No Mary this time. Just us.” 

Sherlock nods. “All right,” he says. He gets to his feet and drinks the last of his wine, then goes for the violin, still on the side table beside John’s chair. 

John comes over with him. “Do you remember teaching me to dance?” he asks, putting his arms around Sherlock from behind. 

Sherlock leans back into him. “Of course. I’ll never forget a moment of that.” 

John’s arms hug him harder. “I wish you could play and dance at the same time.” 

Sherlock smiles to himself and turns around, loosening John’s arms. He walks into the centre of the room to where they used to practise waltzing for the wedding and says, “I don’t want to elbow you with my bowing arm.” He nods John to the coffee table. 

“I have the music upstairs, if you need it,” John says, backing toward the coffee table and perching on the edge. He crosses his legs at the knee and clasps his fingers around the top one, and sitting there in Sherlock’s dressing gown, he looks almost unbearably gorgeous, Sherlock thinks, his features lit by the fire, his eyes agonisingly soft and tender and beautiful.

He knows then that he can play this piece again, properly. For John and John alone, as it was when he wrote it, but this time it won’t be poisoned with the lie of John’s marriage. He shakes his head. “I wrote it,” he says simply. “I don’t need the music.” He lifts the bow and begins to play, his eyes on John’s face, as they were when he played it at the wedding. It’s a simple piece, not even as complex one of John’s etudes, but it contains all of the keening of his then-unfilled heart.

When he reaches the end, John’s eyes are wet. He blinks, stands up and comes over, taking the violin from Sherlock’s unresisting hands. He sets it down behind him on the coffee table, then goes into Sherlock’s arms and says, “Dance with me.” 

“There’s no music.” Sherlock’s arms are around him anyway, moving automatically. It’s not a waltz; they’re just leaning together with their arms around each other, and it doesn’t matter about the music. 

“I don’t care.” They move together in silence, the echoes of the waltz playing in both their heads. John’s cheek is pressed into his and Sherlock’s eyes are closed. After a little while, John breaks the gentle silence and says, “Will you marry me?” 

Sherlock feels his breath catch in his throat a little. “Yes.” It’s that simple. It requires no discussion whatsoever. It’s the only possible answer there is. He turns his face into John’s hair and kisses it, then ducks to find John’s mouth. They kiss for a long moment, then he says it again. “Yes.” 

John’s answer is less verbal than it is vocal, and the dancing swiftly disintegrates. Both dressing gowns fall in heaps to the carpet, and Sherlock thinks that it’s really just as well that Mrs Hudson is out of the house – though they’ll have to tell her soon, he thinks. She’ll be over the moon about this. They leave the fire and the violin behind and go back into the bedroom, and Sherlock thinks that he may well get his wish of not leaving it again for the foreseeable future. Not that there’s any rush, of course, because as of now, they have the rest of their lives for this. 

He never dared imagine that this could happen, but it’s real. His heart is evidently trying to break through his rib cage from within, but John’s arms are holding him together from without. Somehow, he will survive the shock of joy radiating throughout his being. Everything is going to be all right now, because John has come home, and this time, miraculously, everything is the way they both wished it always could have been. It’s unbelievable, and yet the proof is in Sherlock’s very arms. 

Time to stop thinking, he tells himself. He opens his eyes to find John’s on his, his face smiling down at him. From this vantage point he could be an entire universe to Sherlock. (He is, Sherlock thinks.) He surrenders himself to it utterly, because with John here, nothing else matters at all. 

*


End file.
